Who Should Be Invited To Your Wedding?
It’s the age old question. Who should get invited to your wedding day? Should it be reserved for immediate family and your closest friends? Should it be the biggest bash of the year? Many people will have opinions on not only how many people should be at your wedding, but WHO should receive a coveted invitation. We are here to help you determine who you should send an invitation to, and who should maybe be left off of the list.
How Do You Begin Brainstorming Your Wedding Guest List?
If you are recently engaged, you and your fiance may have already sat down to create a guest list and realized that it is a more difficult task than you anticipated: either you can only come up with four names because everyone you have ever interacted with before has slipped your mind, or you have a list that spans for several pages because you want to be polite and invite your orthodontist from when you were twelve.
Photo by Kelly Robbins Photo and Film
To create your guest list, first begin by determining approximately how many people you want. If your dream venue only fits 80, then go into guest list brainstorming knowing that you will have only 80 people total. If you don’t know your venue but know that you want to invite everyone that you have interacted with in the last three years, then begin namestorming everyone you would want to see on your wedding day, and then find a venue to match. If you have a certain budget, then you may determine your guest list number based on how much you would like to spend per person for food and decor. A $75,000 wedding looks very different when it’s for 50 people ($1,500 per person) as opposed to 150 ($500 per person).
Once you have determined how many people you would like at your wedding, begin by making a tiered list. Tier 1 would be individuals that MUST be at the wedding, whether it is 20 people, or 150 people. This may include immediate family, best friends, and wedding party members. Tier 2 could be individuals that you would like to have at your wedding. These could be college friends and good coworkers that you couldn’t picture your wedding without, but if you were forced to cut your wedding guest list down as if it were 2020, most likely would not be in the room. Tier 3 are individuals that you wouldn’t be heartbroken if they weren’t at your wedding, but you want to extend an invite to anyways. These could be individuals that you haven’t seen in fifteen years, friends of parents, or even distant family members that you haven’t seen since you were six.
Once you have sorted everyone into tiers, begin to determine who makes the “final cut” based on what tier they are and how many people you would like to have at your wedding. If you are having a very large wedding, then there’s a good chance that everyone from Tier 3 will receive an invitation. If you want a 100 person celebration, determine who from Tier 2 (or Tier 3) receives an invitation.
When Does It Make Sense To Have A Whittled Down Guest List?
There are a few reasons why you may want to reduce your guest list. First of all is cost. The quickest way to reduce wedding expenses, or create a higher end wedding day, is by reducing the guest count. As we mentioned above, if you price your wedding per guest, then cutting down your guest count means less tables, less centerpieces, less meals, less chairs, etc. That means money can be spent either on higher end design to elevate guest experience, or can be saved.
The second reason may be for the venue. If your dream venue only allows 80 guests, then you may have only 80 guests maximum. While it may be tempting to ask if your venue allows for a few extra, we would not recommend doing so because venues have their maximums due to fire codes, staffing, and resources available to them. If they set a maximum number of people, either respect that maximum or find a venue that can accomodate a larger wedding.
Confident In Your Guest List?
The next step would be to consider having a full service wedding planner to help manage RSVPs and to walk you through next steps as you are in the process of planning. Reach out to Émerveillé Events today to chat with our wedding planners!
