1. Getting Started
As soon as you’ve begun your wedding plans start writing your guest list. We suggest writing down everyone you know, friends and family, co-workers, acquaintances. Look through your address book, your phone and your facebook. Ask your parents if they would like anyone to come, old family friend’s maybe. This list will chop and change throughout your planning process. You will find that over the months you will suddenly remember someone and add them on, you many even make new friends. Once you have a basic list go through and put a tick next to all the guests you would like to invite. You can also make columns with headers such as ‘ceremony only,’ ‘full wedding,’ ‘bridal party.’ Have a count and review your budget, does it allow for this many guests? Would I like to increase my budget or cull my list? Are these people likely to be in my life in 5 years time? Have I spoken to these people in the last 6 months?2. Venue
Of course your venue will tell you the maximum numbers for their capacity but there are a few other questions you need to ask. Most venues have a minimum requirement also; make sure you know what it is. If their requirement is minimum 80 and you’ve invited only 75 guests, you could be paying for the extra 5 seats. You also want to ask how many guests does the venue sit comfortably and how many guests per table. The venue may say it can seat 200 but that may mean they can squash in 200 and be able to sit 180 comfortably. There’s nothing worse than being a guest sitting shoulder to shoulder with someone you may not know very well and not having enough room to walk between the tables.3. Save the date
As soon as you have finalised your list in terms of who you are inviting send you’re ‘save the dates.’ Save the date cards have become so popular and these days with the busy lives we all lead they are invaluable to guests. Most couples are inviting guests from other cities and from overseas and for these people ‘save the dates’ are very helpful in both budgeting for their trip and booking flights and accommodation and also arranging time off work. You can set up a wedding website, a facebook page, you can even send emails or cards by the old fashioned snail mail to do this.4. Declines
Of course you will get some guests that can’t make it, in most situations that will be 15-30% of invitees but you can’t count on that, they may all come! As a general rule the smaller amount of guests you invite the higher percentage will actually attend, this is because it will be family and close friends. The same goes the opposite way, if you have invited 350 guests, many of them may be co-workers or acquaintances that will decline your invitation and that percentage could be higher. If you are having a destination wedding this could also affect your guest list but never count on your invitees declining.5. Children
A controversial question many couples struggle with is ‘should we invite children?’ The best way to deal with this is to either say yes or no and make no exceptions, you may want to have ‘sorry no children’ printed on the invitations so it’s clear and your guests understand they are not singled out. Usually you will be charged half price for kids with your caterer but it is still an added cost. Children can make the day magical, their laughter and cute ways make guests enjoy the day but they can also cry and become tired. You need to ask yourself, ‘what kind of day do I want?’Don’t forget
You may need to take into account feeding your celebrant, your photographer, the band or anyone else that may be at your wedding providing services for an extended period of time and through dinner. Consider if you want these people eating out back in the kitchen (which may be cheaper with your caterer) or if you want them seated with your guests.Good luck!!
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