The Guest List

When you get engaged, you think that putting together your guest list will be one of the easiest things you ever do. As you actually get into doing it, you may find out otherwise. Here are some lessons I've learned as far as tips for putting together your own guest list.

1. First thing to do is decide who's paying? Is it the bride's parents, the groom's parents, a bit of both, or just the bride and groom? This can definitely play a part in determining the guest list.
2. Secondly, once you know who's paying for the wedding, find out what the budget is. Your parents may say I will contribute X, and you can pay for anything else, or they may say "sky's the limit". Most couples don't get that lucky though, and some may end up paying for the whole thing on a very tight budget. Once you know the total budget, divide it down to your reception budget (i.e. the food, drink, etc. for your guests) but know there will be other costs affected by how many people you invite.
   
3. Once you know how much you can spend, decide on the approximate number of guests you can afford. **Key note: not want, I said afford.** Many venues will charge a per person rate, so divide your reception rate by the per person rate, to give you the amount of people. If you don't have a venue like this, make an educated guess on the approximate cost per person and again divide. Other things may also play a factor. I.e. how many people can my ceremony or reception venue hold?
4. Then create a spreadsheet. I live by them. Make columns for: a) who's inviting them, b) name, c) number of attendees, d) address, e)phone or other email information, and f) anything else you'd like to include. Later on I added "formal invitation name" and "informal invitation name" to help with my mail merge for the stationery.
5. Once you have the spreadsheet setup in place, write down the names of guests you want to invite, with you as the "inviter". Then hand the computer to your fiancee to do the same with his name as the "inviter". Then send the spreadsheet to your family (if they have a say in who's attending) and have them add in the guests they want. I'd advise them of the total you're anticipating inviting first, so that you're not thinking of a wedding of 100 total, and each of your parents add 200 names to the list. Note: if they're paying, they get a good say on how many people they can invite, according to etiquette.
6. If you're in a cutting mode, or need to keep the numbers down, make up rules about who to invite. You can eliminate coworkers and extended family from the list, should you want to. Or as we've done, because space is limited, we are not having our single friends get a "plus one" unless they are in a serious relationship. It is against etiquette to tell people they can't bring serious boyfriends or girlfriends, but encourage your single friends by telling them that there will be a lot of other singles there, and you will make sure not to place them at a table of married couples.
7. Another option for cutting is limiting or cutting children altogether. There's lots of advice on how to do this, but here's what we're doing. We don't want everyone invited (since most are married couples with kids) bringing their kids. It would at least double our guest list! So what we're doing is allowing only our very closest family and family friends to bring their children. You cannot write on anyone else's invite that they cannot bring children, but by titling their invitation to "Joe and Karen Smith" only instead of "The Smith Family" or including other names, you make a point of saying it's just you two. However, if Joe and Karen called and asked if they were able to bring their two children, then it's up to you. If it's just one couple I might budge, but you also don't want them telling another couple and all of a sudden you end up with a million children. Finally consider families who may not be able to attend unless they can bring their children. My matron of honor and her husband have two very young kids. If they come (as they most likely will) her parents and her aunt and uncle will also be at the wedding (taking away potential babysitters) so I'm allowing them the option to bring their kids should they want to. This is always a fine line to walk, so be careful. You don't want to offend anyone or prevent them from coming.
8. Finally, when you think you have your guest list in order, remember that you can over invite (some say up to 25%, but you make that call) because chances are not everyone will be able to make it to your wedding. This sounds a bit harsh, but what I also did was once the list was created, I made another column for "could cut if I had to" and marked x's by those guests names, so that if we ended up with 50 guests too many, I could trim off a few to help. Of course, you can only do this before you've sent out save-the-dates or invites (if you didn't send out save-the-date's). Once an invitation is out there, you can't take it back.

Well that's my advice for creating your guest list, albeit I'm sure I forgot other things I should tell you. Just remember that it's your wedding day, so make sure you're happy with the list, but it's also a big day for your families so make sure they're happy too. Also, in the end, don't be pressured to invite people you think you should--perhaps a vendor, or new friend you just made. And if you're on a really tight number count, invite those people who you know you will be friends with 5, 10, 15 years down the road.

Hope this piece of advice helps!

~A

*PS: The picture above is taken from "The Wedding Assistant", which is software meant to help you organize things such as your guest list, but also many other aspects of your wedding. It has a free trial with no time limit (but is limited in what you can do) or you can purchase the software from their website for $29.95 and honestly, it looks to be a really great program.