A Foolproof Guide to the Guest List

To guest, or not to guest?

The guest list is one of the most intense? stressful? painful? parts of wedding planning - not only does your guest list heavily impact your budget, but everyone from your parents to that random second cousin who wants their third boyfriend in the month to be invited as their plus one... It's a lot to navigate and an exercise in setting boundaries, which can be difficult. 

In this post, I've tried to compile tips and tricks to creating your guest list and setting those boundaries with family and friends who try to push for "exceptions" to your guest list.

First things first...

Sit down with your partner, pour yourselves a glass of wine (or other drink of choice), put on a bopping playlist, and start getting in the mindset of guest list making. Start by guesstimating a maximum amount of people you'd feel comfortable with at your wedding - this can be parameters set by your venue of choice, your budget, or a combination of factors. A general guideline is that about 20% of those invited will decline your invitation, so you have a little wiggle room to work with. 

Also discuss some basic parameters like how you're going to deal with parent requests for invitees, if you'll have a child-free wedding, etc.

A simple guide to setting parameters 

This method makes it much easier to determine who gets an invite. This also gives you a set of rules to go by and if anyone tries to ask for exceptions, you have already set rules in place for yourselves to follow. Simply answer yes or no to the following questions to determine parameters of who you invite. 

Family:

• Immediate family through first cousins only
• Immediate family through second cousins only
• Must haven spoken within the past year
• Must have spoken within the past five years
• Parents get X amount of invites each

Friends/coworkers:

• Must have spoken to them in the past year (important for childhood friends)
• Must have spoken to them in the past five years (important for childhood friends)
• Must hang out outside work
• You each get X amount of friend invites each

Kids:

• No kids under 18
• No kids under 21
• Only kids in the wedding party
• Only kids in the immediate family
• No kids
• All kids welcome

Plus ones:

• Only those married
• Only those engaged
• Only those who have been dating for one year or more
• Plus one granted if they do not know anyone else at the wedding
• Everyone is allowed a plus one if they request one

And now for writing your guest list

This will be the first (of many) drafts. I would recommend going full Charlie Day (complete with red string and post-its on the wall) and include EVERYONE. The idea is to be able to then narrow down and organize.

(you planning your guest list)

Sticky or post-it notes actually come in handy for this, as you can use different colors to represent different relations and visualize the connections between your guests (plus, when you decide not to include someone it's a lot of fun to yank them off the wall). 

Let's talk the "B-List"

B-lists have become kind of controversial. It's a touchy subject, especially if you have a guest who accidentally figures out they were on the B-list. Typically, how B-lists work is having two RSVP cards, one RSVP date set before the other (the first date is the cut off for A-list guests, the second date closer to the wedding is for B-list guests). After you get your A-list RSVPs back, you send out your B-list invites. If you do it the traditional way, guests can pretty easily figure out if they are on the B-list. Even if this is a pretty standard practice, as guest lists have to have a maximum due to venue and budget, it still doesn't feel great knowing that you are a second choice guest. 

I still find having a B-list helpful, and there's a way to do it without tipping off guests they are on the B-list. Instead of having two separate "RSVP by" dates, set your final RSVP date for one to two weeks before your final count is due to your vendors (give yourself time to contact people who have not responded); and set yourself a mailing cut off date for one month before that. As you get guests from your A-list respond no, invite the next guest off your B-list, and repeat. If this is confusing, please feel to reach out to me!

Hopefully this gives you a good starting point for creating your guest list, and if you need anything, please let me know!