Setting your own ground rules
First and foremost, making a guest list is hard, especially when you have a big family or lots of people you want to include. Setting ground rules before the big day, that you and your partner agree on and apply to both sides, is important. Have that discussion early and stick to your rules - it’s important! Remember, it is YOUR day.
Budget, money, and the bottom line
Let’s get this one out of the way first. Every wedding has a budget, whether it is firm or more fluid. Staying within this can be an important tool to deciding who is invited, and how many guests you have in total. Use this as your crutch or guideline for making tough choices.
Being transparent: someone is paying for the wedding. Or is giving a lovely gift towards the day and so it is okay to have them looped into the guest list conversation? In the case where one family is paying for the entire event, it would be a gesture of goodwill to offer a certain percentage of guests to the other partner’s family to do as they wish.
It is more than okay to allocate a certain number of “spots” to someone providing a generous contribution to your budget, but having said that, remember that you do have a venue with a limit and your own ground rules and people to invite! So be sure to make sure you are still including all your nearest and dearest you and your partner would like to invite. These conversations can be hard, but helps to protect the day you and your partner are looking for!
Making Groups
A long-running list can be overwhelming and can be where you’ve missed a person or two, so grouping people based on how you know them, where you know them from, and how they know each other can help make section your guest list in a more digestible way and can also assist in making any trims where necessary. It is also helpful to begin to create a seating chart, as it is likely these groups would be sitting together!
Plus Ones
This is a hard one, too. Do single guests need to bring a plus one? If they are part of a larger group of friends or family and know enough attending guests to have a good time on their own, they'll likely be happy to attend on their own! Who knows, maybe they'll even meet another single date and you'll get all the match-making bragging rights!
Adding plus ones can be a huge item on the budget line, and can max out your venue limit very quickly, so you’re allowed to pick and choose, based on your ground rules and circumstances, who gets a plus one and who doesn’t. Have those conversations early!
Family, Friends, and Babies
What about friends you haven’t seen for ages? We all have cherished friends that we just don’t see as much as we’d like to, but a general rule of thumb is, if you haven’t seen them in over a year, they probably shouldn’t make the cut.
What about kids? Do you allow children? What about infants? Where do you draw the line? Take a breath and make a list of the things that have nothing to do with how much you adore each of these little humans. It's probably the question I am asked the most about how to trim your wedding guest list.
Look at the venue, the time of the wedding, and the (sorry to be blunt) level of sophistication you’re hoping to maintain throughout the event. Is this a country casual wedding or an elegant evening with fine dining? Most people actually fall somewhere in the middle so consider only allowing children up until a certain time or perhaps have a sitter on-site for those brand new moms needing to be close by, or, give the parents (and yourself) a break for the evening and leave the kiddies at home.
To round it all off, of course, there are always extenuating circumstances, and we understand that. We want to remind you that it is more than ok if you have rules that may apply to some guests, but not to others. It is your wedding, and you can make your own rules! Maybe your sister has two littles and you can’t imagine your day without them, but no other kids are invited. Maybe it’s an important guest with a new baby traveling from out of town and no childcare help. Maybe a best friend is deserving of a plus one but other guests are not. It’s totally fine!
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