Party invitation dilemma

[Thefatcatswhiskers]

My DS has a 14th birthday coming up. The past 2 years he has invited anyone he wanted, usually about 8 of his school friends and they have went for a game of football/food, inflatable assault course/food. This year he wants to go on a school trip which is quite a bit of money so we’ve told him we can’t afford to invite as many as before and he’ll have to scale down numbers for his party.
How to decide who to invite without causing offence? Is this even possible?
Some of the boys have had parties which he’s been invited to, some that he hasn’t been invited to.
His dad has said he should decide who he wants to invite regardless of whether he has/hasn’t been to theirs. I’m on the fence.
I know parties are a minefield and don’t want to cause any fallouts.
We’ve suggested a few alternatives.
A. Inviting everyone round to ours for pizza/birthday cake. DS thinks this would be boring.
B. Not having a party and just celebrating as a family.
C. Let DS decide who he wants to come to the scaled down party.
Anyone else been in this situation? Thoughts please.

My DD is 14. Invitations on paper stopped at around 12. Her friends are both boys and girls and they tend to go to the cinema and for pizza. Some parents pay for all attendees whilst others don't.

Mainly they are starting to arrange low-key things between themselves without parental involvement and for which everyone pays for themselves.

They could go to the cinema and go for pizza afterwards. Maybe they could pay for their own cinema tickets and you pay for the meal? That’s what I used to do.

Yeah, I’d just have them all round for pizza, Xbox, whatever they’re into... I wouldn’t take them to do anything structured or paid for (such as laser, paintballing etc...). If your DS says it boring just remind him you’re forking out for his expensive trip and you can’t always have your cake and eat it (no pun intended). It’s a good compromise.