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Building your Wedding Guest List doesn't need to be chore and there are a few things you need to take into account when putting your final numbers together.
If you have a Budget or there are number restrictions due to the Venues you are using then you need to have a target number, our guide will help you work out how to make decisions on who to invite
Your Starting Point When Making Your Wedding Guest List
There are a few starting points when making your Wedding Guest list, this might be the capacity of the venue that you choose or what your budget allows or both.
If you are lucky enough to have an open budget then you can invite everyone you know as money is not an issue.
Either way you should decide upon a target amount of Wedding Guests that you will have for the Ceremony, the Meal afterwards and the Evening party.
Chances are that the number you will have at your Evening Party will exceed the number of guests that you have during the day. You might want to choose only close family and friends for the ceremony and the meal afterwards and everyone else you want to invite will get an invitation to the Evening party.
The final numbers of your Wedding Guests will become your target numbers and these are the numbers you need to get to when you make your list.
When you are putting your target number together give some consideration to your timings and whether you will actually get enough time to get round to talk to everyone on the day.
You can always consider having a party on a separate day from the Wedding day if you really don’t wish to cut down on your numbers.
Your Dream Wedding Guest List
Once you have worked out your Target numbers you need to produce a list which you can start whittling down so put together your Dream Wedding Guest List if money were no object.
This wishlist should include all your Family, your extended family, Friends, Work Colleagues and other people you know, think about distant relations, people your parents might know and anyone else you might want to give an invitation to.
Establishing Rules For Getting To Your Target Wedding Guest List Numbers
Before launching headfirst into putting your Wedding Guest List together let’s get one thing straight here, you need to be headstrong in your choices and ignore any expectations there are from any family or friends about them being invited or others they know being invited.
This is your Wedding and your Wedding Guest List and so you have the final say on who comes, even if your parents are paying for part of the day it is important you make it clear to everyone involved that this is your day and you will invite who you want to invite.
Right now you have your Dream Wedding Guest List you need to put together some rules around how you will get to your target numbers.
• Consider how you will split your Guest Numbers between yourselves, if both of you have rather large families you might wish to split the list between the two of you with 50% from either side or if one of you have a larger family you could agree that a certain number of guests are from one side. If one of you have a small family you might decide to invite all of them and then the rest of the numbers will be split between the larger family side and mixed friends of the couple.
• Think of People you Enjoy the company of, this should be straight forward, there are individuals you like to spend your time with and others you could do without spending time with, invite the ones you like, those that make you laugh and those who you have fun with, they are the ones who will make your day even more special for you both
• Consider the likelihood of people actually turning up, your potential guests may have things going on in their lives that will prevent them from attending your special day, for example they might be working on the day of your Wedding, they could have children or elderly parents to look after or other commitments
• Think about where each guest is based, there is a strong likelihood that people living close by to your venues will want to come to your wedding, those who live far away may not want to make the journey or their finances may prevent them from doing so
• Some people may not turn up if you don’t invite their partners or children, this is a given for some people who will simply not turn up if all of them are not invited whether they have taken offence at not having everyone invited or they just can’t find a babysitter!
• Don’t invite “plus ones” for those you haven’t actually met, be strict on this point, even if your best best friend has a new boyfriend if you haven’t met them do you really want to waste that spot on your guest list
• Perhaps you might want to choose the “no ring no invite” rule and only invite those partners who are actually married
• You might want to only invite mutual friends rather than friends from each side
• You may wish to have a rule whereby you don’t invite any workmates of course your best friends might be your workmates and this could go against another rule
• Make a decision on whether you are going to invite friends of your parents, you may feel inclined to do so if you parents have made a contribution to your wedding budget but this decision is entirely up to you.
• Do not invite anyone last minute because they show an interest in your Wedding and you feel guilty you didn’t invite them!
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Have a Backup Wedding Guest List
When you putting your Wedding Guest List together you need to keep in mind that you will have some guests who will decline your invitation and this will leave spaces that you can fill with other guests so it is vital you have a secret back list that you can go from which you can pick some more guest names.
It goes without saying that you need to keep this lit quiet and don’t let on to these guests that they were on the backup list to save any embarrassment you don’t want them to feel like they were not important enough to be invited in the first place.
How You Will Contact Your Wedding Guests
Wedding Invitations can be either sent physically or electronically if you wanted to save money.
There are a whole host of websites that offer Wedding Stationery services and you can pick up generic invites from any shop which you can fill in yourself.
One important thing to remember is to send out your invitations with plenty of time so that your guests have lots of time to get themselves organised, some couples choose to send out “save the dates” as soon as they have their date arranged and other wait until plans are in place until they contact their guests, it is thought you need to give at least 6 months advance notice of your wedding and in some cases this is even longer.
Ensure you inform overseas guests first as they will have to put things in place for their travel arrangements.
When you send out your invitations also make sure you add all the names of the guests you want to invite rather than leaving any blank spaces or address to a particular family name this will avoid any uncertainty with who has actually been invited.
Keeping Track Of Your Wedding Guestlist
When you are managing your Wedding Guestlist you should keep a manual written list or you could use an Excel Spreadsheet to help you, take note of all Wedding Guest’s details including contact telephone numbers and address and any dietary requirements and make sure you keep this updated with any changes where guests are accepting or declining their invitations, try to remember not to delete any information in case you make a mistake or need to refer back.
