Who to Invite to Your Wedding
Deciding on who to invite to your wedding is one of the most diplomatic matters of your wedding planning.
There are people who you are obliged to invite but don’t want to. And others who you want to invite but you are unable to as they have a major conflict with another guest who is essential. These delicate situations can result in political scenarios more complex than United Nations discussions…..or not.
Start this task by mentally preparing yourself for the fact that you may not be able to have your perfect guest list. You may need to miss some people out. And you may need to put some people in. Try your best to deal with that now.
Next, sit down with your fiancé and get yourselves on the same page. There may be some people that you have a love/hate relationship with i.e. you love them and your partner hates them. Get this out in the open at the start to avoid arguing later.
Now it’s time to establish the core people on your guest list and build out from there. Take some paper or a spreadsheet and make 5 columns. Write the total number of guests you are able to invite(if you have a limit) at the top of the sheet. Give the columns the following titles:
- Wedding Party
- Essential
- Preferred
- Preferably not
- No
The next step is self-explanatory. Start in the first column and add the names of your wedding party(including yourselves). If you haven’t decided on your wedding party yet, read this hack. Move along to the “Essential” column and add all your essential guests(grannies, close friends etc.). Next, move to the “Preferred” column and add any guests that you would ideally like to attend. Now comes the harsh part! In the “Preferably not” column add any guests who you prefer not to invite but feel obliged to. And finally, the “No” column speaks for itself(you don’t actually need to add names to the “No” column).
Take some time to do this, don’t rush as you may miss somebody out.
Once complete, start counting the guests from left to right and stop once you reach your guest limit. Ideally, you want to stop in the “preferably not” column so that you can invite all the people you want to. When you reach your guest limit, now comes the hard part. Look at the current column only and work out how many guests you are able to invite from that column. Choose your favourite guests and remove the others. Your guest list is now complete.
This may seem like an overly-systematic harsh way to build your guest list…..and you’re right, it is. But sometimes this is just what’s needed. This is as simple a way as you will find to build your guest list.