The wedding guest list

When you start planning your wedding, one of the first decisions you will have to make is the guest list – who to include and who to leave out. It’s important to estimate the number of guests early in the planning process, because it’s a prerequisite for the restaurant selection. You will have the widest range of choices with 70-80 guests. A standard wedding is about 115-120 guests and most of the popular wedding restaurants can accommodate them. 2

When crafting the guest list, you might have to be somewhat rigid, because the restaurant is the largest item of the wedding budget. To avoid tensions, we suggest you consider the following topics before finalizing the guest list.

♥  Make sure you invite people who are important to you. Of course, your parents would probably insist that you invite relatives you might not even know and if possible try to limit such guests to a minimum. Focus on friends and colleagues who are close to you and your partner.

♥  Right after the engagement, you can’t wait to share the news with everyone – friends, colleagues, relatives. Try to refrain from promising invites at that exciting time, because it might very well turn out that you can’t make it to the final list. Talk to your fiancé and your parents and after you have determined your budget and the number of guests you can afford, start sending our official invitations.

♥  Make two lists – a main one and a waiting list. Invite people from the waiting list only when you have a corresponding rejection from the main list. Of course, this can only happen if you have planned well and have sent the invites 3-4 months before the wedding.

♥  In the RSVP time, follow closely your budget and if more people confirm as compared to what you have planned, re-arrange your priorities and decrease the spendings on some other the budget item.

♥  Don’t count on people not being able to make it. If you invite them a couple of months in advance, they will probably make plans so they can honor your big day.

♥  Invite your colleagues without their partners. Most probably, you don’t know the partners that well anyway.

If you prefer to let a professional plan the wedding preparation, budgeting, and priorities, we at Inanna wedding agency would be happy to assist. Get in touch with us to talk through your needs and expectations about your wedding day.