Coming up with a guest list that is within the range of what you can afford is the hardest part of the wedding planning process. Trying to evaluate every personal relationship you have in your life and then prioritizing them against each other has been a mentally exhausting activity. My fiancee and I sat down last Sunday and made a spreadsheet of every single person we felt we wanted to invite in an ideal situation. In the other room, both of our parents were coming up with a list of family friends and relatives from each side of the family.
After about an hour and a half we came up with a preliminary list totaling more than 550 guests! My lady and I went to college together, so we have a ton of common friends, but in total our list came out to almost 140 people! How can we sit there and say one person is more important than the other?
The rest of the afternoon consisted of arguing between us two and both of us taking dumb things personally just because one of us felt that a certain person should not be attending over another person. Looking back it, its comical thinking of the reasons we both defended people. The bottom line in all this is every single head comes with a price tag. The more people invited, the more expensive this wedding is going to get.
A few common situations came up extremely often:
- Are we obligated to invite someone that invite one or both of us to their wedding?
- Should we invite people who only invited our parents to past weddings?
- How do we handle children of married couples? The same way others excluded us when we were little?
- Do we risk causing friction with family members by not inviting them, even though we have not heard from them in years?
The majority of our discussions kept coming back to the topics listed above. So how do you assess these situations? I need some insights from the happily married couples that went through such planning experiences.
We have the list currently into the 470 range, but that still is not good enough. We need to get it as close to 400 as possible and we already cut out many of the people we considered as “maybes”. Now we are starting to infiltrate the group we considered to be “locks” from the beginning.
It is going to be a long recursive process, after all, the wedding date is set for July 17th, 2010. Just because we invite 400+ people does not mean that every single one of them will accept. Stay tuned for more updates on this topic, but in the mean time, please share the war stories you and your spouse went through when it came to coming up with your guest list, big or small!
One Comment
@Squawkfox – Getting eloped was a common suggestion to my fiancee, but being the only child she has been dreaming for this day, she deserves it.
@Radha824 – Both of our parents were not even interested in such an idea, they were fine with capping our wedding off with a specified number. Can’t wait to hear how your plans go!
@Dolly – I agree that you should only invite people that mean something to you. Many people left my sister and other siblings out so we are ready to do the same. Good for you for taking on the responsibility to pay it down yourself! Keep me posted crazy Dolly!
@Yo Prinzel – I love your usage of “enrich” b/c that is what its all about, having those people there who truly appreciate being there. Great site you have!