To ask how many of your wedding guests have died?

[NameChangeMay2026]

It's our anniversary this week, although we are getting divorced.

How many of your guests did you lose in the twenty years after your wedding? I feel like our losses are high. About 85 guests and 15 are gone. Is this normal? Or does it seem high to you too?

5 aunts and uncles ranging from 60s-90s

😁

100 guests 21 years ago - 10 have passed away. Two were young too- v close friend who did my make up, my cousin and the rest who passed are the generation above.

I have no idea of the exact figure as I'm not entirely sure where the guest list is now stored. An old hard drive somewhere.

Several of my close friends have married, divorced and remarried though since 2004. None of the guests my own age (50s) or younger, to my knowledge, have passed away though one of my bridesmaids has stage 4 cancer. I'd say most of the older boomer/silent generation guests have passed away, but that's not surprising if they were in their 60s 22 years ago.

Married 15 years, around 120 guests. 8 have sadly died, including MIL, Dh's uncle, two of his cousins who were all 50s/60s and a good friend of mine who was one of her ushers, he was only 42 when he died of cancer

Gosh not many. Been married 17 years and had 100 ish guests. 3 deaths, of whom 2 were my grandparents already in their late 80s at the wedding. One death of someone our age, sadly.

All 4 of our parents are still with us amazingly <touch wood> and so are the other guests their generation (though there weren’t that many).

Married 28 years and I’m gutted that I can’t remember all the people who attended our wedding.

I distinctly remember there were 114 guests but have just written a list and can only remember 89 names. I am going to get the photos out this afternoon as it is bugging me so much.

23/89 are dead which shocked me.

Great thread, very thought provoking.

But that's how they've coped with their loss and you're belittling it.

Like I said you're lucky you even had them in attendance. I won't.

Her husband died and you wrote that?

OP is playing grief top trumps here. Her losses are worse than anyone else's.
Doesn't matter if someone else's husband died since their wedding because nothing can trump what OP has gone through.
No one is getting any sympathy from the OP, no matter how awful their circumstances!

We had about 90 guests, 17 years ago. To my knowledge, 2 have died (my grandparents). There are a few people we don’t keep in touch with, so there is a chance that number is a little higher.

Eh? I don't think I wrote anything bad to someone who's lost their husband! I wouldn't do that. MN deleted whatever it was, and I haven't had an email from them, so are you sure it wasn't another poster? Can you tell me what was said?

LMAO! 🤣🤣🤣

20 years, DH and I are in our early 50’s. 70 guests, lost 15. The 3 parents we had when we married and the rest uncles and aunts ( 4 his, the rest mine). Never counted it up before and it is sad, but remember when we were planning the kind of wedding we had that it was a way to enjoy having such lovely families.

25 years married and married young so all parents still going strong. We had grandparents at the wedding who have since died. I can think of 10/180 guests who have died but that is probably an underestimate. I don’t think anyone from our generation at the wedding has died that I know of but some from the generation above died relatively young.

It's not a competition.

Pain is pain.

I'm really sorry you lost your parents young. 😢💐

I agree but that's how it's appeared on this thread.

I'm sorry for your losses too.

Four in six years.

You're right. of course those new babies don't replace anyone. I don't think that's what people were saying. Some were saying "here's a different, more upbeat question". Others were saying "well it is all just part of the cycle of life that you would expect after 20, 30 or more years".

Funnily enough, you reminded me that my mum had a strict "one in one out" rule for stuff at home. She was very organised like that. When she was dying of cancer (age 66) my sister got pregnant; four years earlier my other sister was pregnant when my grandfather (my mother's father) died. My mum did actually joke as she was dying that our family always followed the "one in one out" rule!

I agree. For me it's more of a moment of reflection on how the photos capture a moment in time. We were first in our circle to get married, made sure to take a photo of the guests all together - it's funny to think of all our then-24 year old friends who are now parents. I think there are 15 babies between us.

It's our 29th anniversary this year. Around 45 people attended our wedding. 9 have died. To be fair, though, at the time of marriage, I still had all my grandparents, plus step-grandparents, my husband's Nana was still alive, he's older than me and his parents were older when they had him than mine were when they had me, so it's kind of not surprising. On the plus side, all of our friends we had at the time, so people our age, are still alive (as far as I know, we aren't still in touch with all of them).

Married 25 years. Only 3 have died. My dad, MIL and a friends then partner to suicide. I would add that another older couple were invited but they declined due to distance, they have since passed away. When I think about it thats pretty good going.

My stats are bad.

Married 1998. I've been divorced for 20 years.

15 of us at the wedding. 6 have died.

My grandparents have died, my former father in law, both witnesses and, very sadly, my ex husband's nephew (who died aged 22).

How sad about the nephew. How old were your witnesses?

It does sound bad based on the numbers alone, but then not necessarily so bad when you break it down.

I find sometimes very small intimate weddings are like that, particularly if it was mainly older family in attendance and then of course the ones who have passed away usually did so naturally from old age.