HK – I agree with your first post that this is an either-or situation. You either go for the chuppah and go home and eat dinner, etc at home or you eat dinner at home (or a restaurant close to the chassanah just to treat yourself) and then go for the simchas chosson v’kallah. No one expects you at that point to go to both, why would you think so? Yes, it is difficult if it is far away, but then you have to make a cheshbon of whether you want to go at all, you’re not chayav to go. I think it can save a lot of $ in babysitting money or if you decide to take the kids with, they don’t have their schedule upset each time you want to go to a simcha – just go for the chuppa and stay home for the rest. You can split it up if you want – wife takes kids to the chuppa and goes home to put them to bed. Hubby goes for the simchas chosson v’kallah.
By the way, as far as not making it to the 800th friend, don’t forget that there are 2 sides to a chassana. Perhaps one side has a very large family and the other side doesn’t. They could agree to split a portion of the meals that one side pays for all of that and then the side that has more people to invite simply adds the difference. Maybe your side only had 200 people on their list, most of whom was family and only very close friends because that is what they could afford simply because they were paying for 400 people total and that was their budget. Now the other side added 400 more meals on their own.