Formulating your wedding guest list can be one of the most rewarding and anxiety-provoking parts of planning a wedding. While including people to celebrate in your wedding is good, it can also increase the overall cost and lead to conflicts. As a result, it is a good idea to carefully construct your wedding guest list.
A good way to create a list that will work is to follow a guide. Below we quickly cover how you can construct the appropriate list for your wedding through our wedding guest list etiquette guide. Let’s begin!
Begin With Your Dream List
The first thing you will want to do is organize your dream list of guests. If you had nothing to consider but your own happiness, who would you include in your wedding? Create this list and consider making several different ranks of musts, would-like-to-haves, and possible drops.
Consider Financial Help
It is not uncommon for the cost of weddings to be covered in part by parents and family members. As a result, you will want to consider not only including people who will donate, but people that they want included as well. So, if you have a grandma who is willing to donate money, then you may want to ask who they want included. You should also consider people who have money and might be willing to provide wedding gifts. Including them can mean significant savings for you down the road.
A Realistic Guest List
As any person who has created a guest list will tell you, it is easy for the guest list to quickly balloon out of control. You may begin with 20 guests, and quickly find yourself with 45 after only a few days. Keeping guest lists realistic is important because of cost. While many people do not want to discuss the costs associated with a wedding, it is crucial if you want to make a realistic plan that will cause you less anxiety. A realistic guest list will help you set hard limits.
Make Rules for Cutting People from Your List
Work with your partner and create a list of rules that you both will follow to determine who is cut from the wedding invitation list. Rules can include things like cutting people you haven’t talked to in more than three years, people you might feel guilty leaving off, and if nothing else eliminating those people neither of you have spoken or heard the names of. These rules may sound basic, but you will be surprised at how challenging it can be to follow these rules and act on them.
As a premier wedding venue in Ottawa, St. Elias Centre is committed to helping brides- and grooms-to-be with wedding planning and wedding etiquette advice. Get in touch if you have any questions or if you’d like to plan your wedding at our venue!