The Wedding Lens Blog – Wedding Planning Tips & Advice

Do you want a small wedding? A huge wedding? How many people will you have? And where does the list end?  Obviously guestlists can be a contentious subject!

photo from http://www.myexpression.com/ArticlesWedding/GuestList.cfm

A friend got engaged and listed her status on one of the popular social networking sites.  Within minutes, a friend from high school who she hadn’t been in touch with for YEARS, emailed her and said “Congratulations! Can I come to the wedding?”  I recommended that she write back “No” if only because I thought that was incredibly rude! How could you assume you would be or should be invited?!

Apparently, people requesting or assuming they are invited to weddings is a very common occurrence. (And I’m guessing those people have not read my previous blog on assuming you’re not invited!)

So what can you do to cut the list down a little bit? 

First, don’t allow your close friends to bring a random date.  Obviously married folks should be allowed to bring spouses.  And it’s up to the bride and groom about how to handle long-term significant others.  But your close friends who are not in a serious relationship probably don’t need a random date. Why? Because your close friends can hang out with your other close friends!

Before I met my boyfriend, I was invited to a number of weddings alone and they were a LOT of fun. All my close friends were there — some with boyfriends/girlfriends and some alone too. It was great and a date would have only been one more person there. He wouldn’t have made the night any better!

Sure it’s not a lot of people, but it’s something! (And when you’re allowing or not allowing a guest, remember how to address the envelopes!)

Second, keep in mind that 10-20% of guests decline the invites. Ususally.

Third, you can cut the people who you haven’t talked to in years.  I know you were invited to their wedding once-upon-a-time, but if you haven’t talked to them in the past year, then don’t feel guilty about not inviting them.

Fourth, don’t invite kids. I know! But there are pros and cons to this suggestion.

Fifth, don’t invite co-workers.  This depends on how close you are to your co-workers, but a lot of times this becomes a slippery slope and suddenly you feel obliged to invite a LOT more people from work.  Cut it at the source!

Another suggestion: Create a list of absolutely non-negotiable must-be-there people. Then you can work backwards from there… You don’t need to invite people who, 10 years from now, you’ll say “wait, why did we invite them?”

Remember, it’s your wedding and your guestlist!

~ Natasha