The Most Difficult Part of Planning a Wedding: the Wedding Guest List
Let’s chat about wedding guest lists for a moment. This is THE. HARDEST. PART. of many brides’ entire planning experience. Though I planned most of my wedding during the height of COVID (which 100% added to the frustration), I think the list is tough for everyone. Cutting people is not fun, and being told people you want there aren’t going to make the cut is not fun. This was a point of tense emotions for everyone involved, so today I want to share with you:
- Tips and tricks I wish I had used to create our wedding list
- Easy ways to make cuts to your list (that I learned while doing ours!)
Tips and Tricks to Utilize while Working on your Guest List
Follow these simple wedding guest list hacks to make the process easier, quicker, and, best of all, less stressful.
Know the Cutoff Number Before Starting
On average, 15-20% of wedding invitees decline. Keeping this percentage in mind, figure out your cutoff number. For example, if you want a 100 person wedding, odds are if you invite 115 – 120 people you will still be safe.
Create an A List and a B List
This is not me saying to “rank” your friends. Rather, this is an easy method to divide the “non negotiable” invites from the “extras”. When it comes to wedding planning, everyone that is not a family member or in the wedding party is considered an extra. It just has to be this way! Once you know how many A List attendees you have, it is easy to calculate the number of B list you (and your parents!) can invite and go from there. The best part about utilizing this strategy? The A list (give or take out-of-town guests) is essentially the same list you will use for your rehearsal dinner, so by doing this you are checking two boxes in one! Utilizing this tip also makes the next suggestion easier…
Give Parents (yours / your partners’) a set number they can invite!
This is easier to do if you use the step above. Giving parents on both sides an idea of how many total invites you can extend is transparent and helps them understand why they are being given the number that they are. This can get tricky if your parents (bride!) are paying for the wedding. In this case, I’d recommend getting their list, subtracting those invites from your remaining B list number, and then deciding how many invites your groom’s family is allowed.
Planning a wedding during the pandemic was tough. It led to both my parents and myself/Harry making cuts we otherwise wouldn’t have had to make! Something that helped us was seeing the responses of the people on our initial list, reevaluating, and then going back and adding those people that we initially had to cut off for capacity reasons.
Other articles you may enjoy:
Easy Ways to Make Cuts to your Wedding Guest List
It is very rare to go into wedding planning and have list invites to spare! Making cuts is hard, which is why I’m here to help you out! Follow these 5 wedding guest list cuts to make your list the length you need for the big day.
Make your Wedding 18+
This is one of the easiest ways to make a wedding affordable / slice the guest list. Anyone under 18 gets taken off! Here’s why this is so important:
Most venues these days require every person over 2 years old to count as an adult, which means they are charging a full meal price and alcohol for everyone – including your friend’s 7 year old! My wedding was 100% 18+ (minus my / Harry’s cousins who were in high school). If you feel this rule will offend some of your close friends, go ahead and have a conversation about it with them ahead of time. Of course, just like everything, there are exceptions.
Slice the +1 Game
People assuming they get a +1 to a wedding is a recent thing. Until social media culture began to take over, it was an understood rule that if your invite doesn’t have another name, you don’t get a plus one!
Cutting plus one invites from the list is a quick and easy way to make your list shorter (and save money overall).
Harry and I used a set of specific rules to give out our +1s. Essentially, you got a +1 if you…
- are married or engaged (easy, and… duh…)
- are in the wedding party
- are someone special to us traveling in from out of town
- have been dating your significant other longer than a year (and we have met them)
For all of this remember: you send save the dates 6 months in advance – a lot can happen in that amount of time! I felt our rules were lenient and easy to follow.
If you weren’t invited to their wedding, they don’t need to be invited to yours.
There are some exceptions to this one. For one, if you became friends with this person after they were already married, obviously this rule doesn’t count. Same with that couple who had a 10 person destination wedding that only included their parents and persons of honor, or the couple who had to slice their guest list due to the pandemic. Use common sense when utilizing this rule.
Cut “other” family members
Just because you’re inviting your best friend from high school and her parents does not mean you also have to invite her 4 siblings. I invited the parents of some of my wedding party and then the sister of one of my closest friends from growing up. Otherwise, families were not invited.
Money Talks
The average cost per guest at a wedding is well above $150 (that’s over $300 for a couple)! Ask yourself: is it worth $300 for me to have this couple there on my big day? If not, you really do not need to be extending that invite.