Grammar fix
immediate family
close relatives
Your immediate family includes your closest relatives, like your parents, children, brothers, and sisters, but not your aunts, uncles, or cousins.
Hear it in context
Notice where the phrase sounds natural.
Only my immediate family came to the small wedding ceremony.
In my culture, people are very close to their immediate family, and we usually live together or visit each other often.
Fix the pattern
One small grammar move makes it sound right.
Not: Only the immediate families are invited.
Say: Only immediate family are invited.
'Immediate family' is collective/uncountable here — no plural 'families' for one person's relatives.
Which sounds natural?
Tap the one a native speaker would say.
'Immediate family' is the standard set phrase. 'Closest blood relations' is clunky.
Build natural chunks
Words that usually travel with it.
immediate family
- only
- members of
- close to
- extended family