My fiance has people demanding to be invited already and he is caving in to pressure?

We barely got engaged and are taking baby steps toward planning our wedding. My fiance originally wanted a small wedding of 50 people to which I couldn't agree more. Recently he is having a change of heart and wants to invite almost 25 more people from his office. Some of them he wants to invite, others have straight out demanded an invitation! He also got an email from a high school friend saying she better be invited. I hope they are being playful and just backhandedly congratulating him. I don't begrudge him inviting a few close work friends, but I don't think we can afford all of them. Every day he comes up with more names to add. He knows we can't afford a big wedding but he also admits feeling pressured and guilty he can't invite everyone. Any words of wisdom I can give him? I have already told him people will understand, we are paying for it ourselves, etc. I also am really rubbed the wrong way by anyone demanding or asking for an invite. Especially since we JUST got engaged. How do you eve. respond to such a thing? Fake laugh? Make a joke about eloping?