Deciding On The Guest List

How Big Is Your Wedding Going To Be?

After deciding how much you want to spend you need to decide who you want to invite. Your budget may determine whether you have a smaller wedding or a bigger one. When choosing who to invite we made a list of all the people we couldn't imagine not being there, and then a list of people that we'd love to come if we could afford it. This meant we had a minimum number and a max, which made it easier when we were looking at venues.

My wedding planner has a section for the guest list and it's divided into the bride's guest and the grooms. This meant we could check our guest numbers were fairly even, after all it's both of our weddings! For us we decided that we didn't want to do evening guests, but that is definitely something you need to consider if you have more people that you want to invite than you can afford.

Here is a list of people you will need to consider when putting your list together:

Immediate Family

We started with our parents, grandparents, siblings and their partners/children followed by our aunts, uncles and cousins. Luke doesn't really have a big immediate family whereas I do, so when creating our initial list that was something we had to consider as we didn't want it to be all my family and barley any of his.

Distant Family

Due to Luke not having such a big immediate family we choose to invite more distant relatives, such as second cousins. When deciding on distant family it's important to decide how distant you want to go, as there may be friends you'd rather invite as you see them more often. If you have family you're in touch with or see regularly that's a good place to start.

Friends

We started with our closest friends, then considered school friends, university friends, neighbors and people we don't not see as often. Think about who would make a good addition to your day. You could always invite some of them as evening guests if your guest list is getting too big.

Plus Ones

Do you want to do plus ones? This definitely needs a lot of consideration as it can really increase your numbers. We decided to invite plus ones for people that had been in a relationship for 6 months or longer. It's a good idea to create a rule so you have a cut off point.

Family Friends & Friends of Parents 

We have a lot of family friends so this was something we really had to consider when putting together our guest list as we wanted a lot of them there. They therefore made up quite a large proportion of our guest list. This may not be the same for everyone though and it depends completely on your family.

Children Free? Or Children Friendly?

Whether you are going to invite children or not can really determine the dynamic of the wedding. Do you want a family wedding? Or a more formal adult event. We have young children in our immediate family so for us it was always going to a child friendly wedding. 

Not Everyone Will Be Able To Come!

Just because you invite 60 people doesn't mean 60 people will actually be able to come. Obviously sending save the dates out well in advance the wedding will increase the chances but still it doesn't guarantee every guest that you invite will be able to make it. Therefore it's a good idea to give yourself 10% 'regrets' element, this is especially important if your venue has a minimum capacity. You also need to consider that you may receive responses via text, phone call,email or post so put together a spreadsheet where you can keep track of who can or can't come.