As promised last week, I am continuing with my Beginning Planning Tips by talking about your guest list and how you can avoid busting your budget.
Using the budget tips I gave you last week, you should have a specific figure in mind for your wedding budget. Based on that figure, you should now begin creating your guest list. Have a good chat with your fiancé and begin envisioning what size of wedding you would like. Do you want it small and intimate or a large party where you invite everyone under the sun?
Okay. Come on back down to earth now and begin writing down a realistic list of those you positively want to invite and those whom you may include if you decide to do a larger fête. If you are having trouble deciding who the “positively” want to invites are, think of it this way. Are those people close enough (and I don’t mean location-wise) to you that you would invite them over for dinner? If not, those would not be the “positively” to invite people. It’s also a good idea to give each set of parents a specific number of how many they can invite; however, you do not have to promise to invite everyone on their list.
The quick nuts and bolts? The more guests you have, the more it will cost.
To guide you further, consider the following tips when creating your guest list:
1. Dividing the number. You could do this one of two ways. The number of guests could be divided in half, with one-half for your family and one-half for your fiancé’s family. However, if one of the families lives out of town, they may politely yield part of their number. Another option is to divide the list into thirds. You and your fiancé would have one-third while each set of parents get one-third each.
2. The average number of invited guests that attend a wedding is about 80 percent, but don’t guarantee your guest count on that alone.
3. Etiquettely speaking, this is how you would handle inviting singles, couples living together, engaged, etc. For singles, just invite that person. There is no need to add “and guest,” especially if you are limiting your guest list. For singles where you know they are currently in a serious relationship, it would be considerate to invite both. Never a question - one member of a married or engaged couple is never invited without the other.
4. To eliminate the question of whether you are inviting children or not, the names that are written on the inside envelope are the ones actually invited. If a guest still asks you if they can bring their children, you can tell them that your reception space can only accommodate so many and you have reached that capacity, or you could simply say your budget doesn’t allow any more people than you already invited. Be sure you stick with this. You don’t want your friends to see other families with children when you turned them down. If you are not having any children, the only children that should be at the reception would be those who are actually in the wedding party.
5. Having a destination wedding is another way to avoid the guest list dilemma. For a destination wedding, you would only invite your family and the closest of your friends for a great weekend of fun.
As you gather your guest list, you may be shocked that your list is bigger than what your budget can afford. Remember, setting priorities and determining what’s most important will help you tremendously in determining how many people you really can accommodate. Trimming the guest list or rethinking your reception décor are pretty much your only options. Be creative. You can and will find that happy place and still have the most fantastic wedding.
Next week, we’ll look at ways for deciding on a date for your big day.
photo credit: theknot
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