Tips for Making Your Wedding Guest List | Wedding Wednesday

for brides

Tips for Managing Your Wedding Guest List

Making your guest list is usually one of the more stressful tasks when planning your wedding. Typically, there are two sets of parents (and oftentimes more) giving their opinions on who should and shouldn’t be invited. Follow the tips below to help you narrow down the list in an organized, peaceful fashion.

  1. Know what kind of vibe you are going for. Are you wanting a small, intimate wedding with just a few family and close friends? Are you wanting a large celebration with extended family and friends from childhood to now? Talk to your fiance’ about this and determine what you are looking for so that when you sit down with parents to discuss the guest list, you have already determined the feel for the day.
  2. Know your venue! Once you determine what you want your wedding to feel like, pick your venue. If you want a more intimate wedding, you aren’t going to choose a venue that will hold 500 guests. If you want to invite all the people, you’ll need to choose a space to accommodate. Once your venue is set, you will be able to “blame” your venue restrictions for the need to scale back the guest list to a certain number.
  3. Present a united front. As you sit down to talk with parents or other people that are interested in adding names to your guest list, it’s important that both the bride and groom are united. Make sure you have each other’s back if you get pushback on your guest list. It’ll be good practice for your marriage! 🙂
  4. Start before you sit down with parents. You and your fiance’ should sit down and write out your “must have” guests before you sit down to discuss the list with anyone else. You don’t want to get other input and add names to the list and then not have room for the friends you want to invite.
  5. Remember . . . it’s YOUR wedding. Yes your parents may be helping you pay for this wedding, but this is ultimately your day. Don’t feel guilty for not being able to invite your mom’s hairdresser’s daughter or your future mother-in-law’s high school friends. This day should include the people YOU love and that you would miss if they weren’t at the celebration.
  6. Everyone does NOT need a “plus one”. Granted you will want to consider your single best friend that wouldn’t have anyone else to sit with if she attends solo, but you don’t have to include a “plus one” all the time. Are you inviting a group of sorority sisters? They can come together, sit together and celebrate together. Your college cousin that doesn’t have a steady can certainly attend with her family. If you have to cut back, don’t feel bad doing it in this way. The exception would be if the guest has a boyfriend/girlfriend that you are close to or if they are engaged.

Once you nail down your guest list, you’ll be able to take care of a lot of other details like cake, food, entertainment, etc. You’ll also feel much more relaxed knowing that this difficult task is done!

Next week we will talk about invitation etiquette!

Check out all of my Wedding Wednesday posts for brides by checking out the “for brides” section below.

  1. Marquette says:

    Oh these are so perfect and so helpful!!

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