How to Make a Wedding Guest List

Making a wedding guest list can mean making some pretty tough decisions. Balancing your budget against your buddies is no easy task. How to Make a Wedding Guest List offers a plethora of pointers for how to choose your essential wedding guests.

Introduction
- The faces that line the aisle on your wedding day should be special to you. Making your wedding guest list is a challenging process because you don't want to forget any essential guests or succumb to the pressure to invite (and pay for) nonessential guests. Below, you will find tips for building, managing and trimming your wedding guest list.
Before You Make the Guest List
- Start to finalize the basic wedding planning decisions that will help you to make your guest list.
1. Your Wedding Vision: Figure out what type of wedding you want to have. You need to know whether you want to have an intimate gathering, a large-scale formal gathering or something in between before you start making the list.
  - If you find that your guest list is getting too big for the wedding you'd envisioned, you might need to reconsider what type of wedding you will have.
2. The Wedding Budget: Some wedding vendors, such as caterers, operate on a price per head basis. Whatever your budget, it can only accommodate so many.
  - Gather your resources and calculate your budget early so that you know exactly how much you have to spend. This will help you to understand how many people you can invite and why.
  - If family members are helping to foot the bill, determine how much input they will have on the guest list early on.
3. The Wedding Date: You should have a few dates in mind so that you can contact the most essential guests on your list to make sure that they will be free to attend.
4. The Ceremony and Reception Venues: If you have your heart set on particular ceremony or reception venues, find out how many people they can accommodate. Consider this when building your list of invitees.
Make the List
- Think about all of the wonderful people with whom you would like to share this special occasion. Consult your e-mail and physical address books to jog your memory.
1. Determine the number of guests: Now that you know what kind of wedding you want and how much you have to spend, use that information to decide how many guests you can invite. Keep in mind that the headcount at your reception is the biggest expense in your wedding budget.
2. Make the A-list: The bride and groom should sit down with pen and paper and make out their A-list, which should include essential guests, anyone who should bear witness to your marriage and, of course, party-making personalities to make the reception memorable.
3. Make the do-not-invite list: Avoid inviting those who might have awkward relationships with the bride and groom or their families. Start with any one who might be tempted to "speak now" instead of "holding his peace".
4. Get financial contributers' guest lists: Parents of the bride and groom, especially if they're helping to foot the bill, should have some say about who's invited from each family. Decide how you will divide the invitations.
  - A couple of options are to divide the invitations in half between the bride and groom's family or, if you share friends, give each set of parents one third of the invites to send to family and close friends.
5. Make the B-list: If there's still room, the bride and groom should make out their B-list.
  - You might be tempted to invite your boss or co-workers, but keep your own comfort in mind. Don't invite anyone who would distract your focus from this special event.
Cut the List
- Once you've made a list of everyone whom you would like to invite, cut the guest list to fit your budget and venue restrictions. It's not easy, but think of it like packing up clothes to go to Goodwill: only keep the guests whose presence you will really appreciate.
1. Accept the fact that, no matter what, you will have to cut your list.
2. Consult the list against the party budget. If necessary, cut the guest list down by removing non-essential guests.
3. Make objective standards for inclusion and exclusion, especially if you're having trouble cutting the guest list on a name-by-name basis. Here are some popular suggestions for cutting the guest list:
  1. Decide whether or not you will invite children.
  2. Ask single people not to bring dates. This is a good way for your single friends to meet.
  3. Do not invite people to reciprocate for invitations or gifts that they've given to you.
  4. Cut anyone you haven't spoken to in a number of years.
  5. Cut all co-workers you do not socialize with outside of work.
  6. Cut the heavy drinkers. You'll spare yourself some drama and a hefty bar tab.
4. Once you've made your first round of cuts, send invitations to your A-list guests and wait to see who replies. This will tell you how many invitations you can send out to your B-list.
5. Once you've assessed how many spaces you have left, send invitations to B-list guests. Try to send these early enough that B-list guests don't feel like an afterthought.
Resources for How to Make a Wedding Guest List
- The Knot: Planning Calendar: 12-Month Countdown
- The Knot: Guest List: Should You Invite Your Ex?
- The Knot: Guest List: Dream Solutions to Your Guest List Nightmares
- The Knot: Guest List: How to Make It Work
- The Knot: Guest List: Inviting Kids (or Not)
- Quick and Dirty Tips: Tips for Building Your Guest Lists
- About.com: Creating a Wedding Guest List The First Steps
- About.com: Top 10 Ways to Save Money and Have a Cheap Wedding
- eHow: How to Create a Wedding Guest List
- WeddingChannel.com: Guest List Game Plan
- Google Book Search: Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior
- DearSugar: The How-To Lounge: Creating your Wedding Guest List (April 16, 2007)