I feel ya! We had trouble narrowing our guest list down to 300 (especially because my mom at first tried to turn my wedding into some psycho family reunion! ahhhh!!!).

Children: We did not invite children, but we did have two JR Bridesmaids and a family with four children. This is not rude, the children were cousins and the JR Bridesmads were participating in the wedding. If anyone was mad, I wouldn't know about it. We printed on inserts in the wedding invitations "Adult reception. We love your children, but they will be more comfortable at home."

Ceremony but not reception: Is becoming very common these days. Reception halls can cost a small fortune! My friend got married last year and could not invite everyone to the reception. So what she did was have a cake and punch reception at the church so that she could thank everyone for coming and then the closer friends and family went to the restaurant. As far as I know no one was offended.

I wouldn't worry about wording. If someone isn't invited to something, you shouldn't have to put an explanation in the invitation. I would make two sets of invites, one set for people invited to everything, and one set of people invited to the ceremony. Anything I felt people needed an explanation about I would refer them to our wedding website which we created for free at Free Wedding Websites.