Tips for Creating Your Wedding Guest List

Creating your wedding guest list can be tough and stressful! You have each of your feelings to consider, and of course two families to consider. Here are some tips for creating (and cutting) with hopefully a little bit of ease…

1)     Each of you should sit down and create your own list of friends and family. We started with this, then went through the list together and weeded out a few, especially friends. Have you talked to that person much in the last few years? Do you talk to them every day? There are so many things to consider…but be careful not to underestimate your friendships as well.

2)     When it comes to cutting the family list, start with sending each list to your parents (especially the Mom’s!) They will be more than willing to offer their opinions, I’m sure. They will likely add some “musts” but I found in my case, my Mom chopped up my list!

3)     Now the big job is next, which we definitely learned from, was the way to collect addresses. We wanted to get a jump start on this task, but learned something very important - decide on your FINAL list first - to the point of you are ready to send the invites. We started asking everyone for their addresses, but hadn’t finalized and when it came down to cutting a few more people, we felt stuck with inviting them because we had already asked them for their address!

4)     Another tip to keep in-mind, is leaving a bit of room. If you take a year or so to plan your wedding – a lot can change. Friends can change, jobs can change – anything is possible. There WILL be people, closer to the date that you will want to invite. It will help to leave a little wiggle room for a few extras if you can make it work with your budget. But that being said, you will not get 100% of the people you invite either. You can bank on about 10-20% of your invites declining. That number will also depend on the circumstances of your wedding and location of family etc. In our case, both our extended families lived in a different Province than us, so although it was in Canada, it was also a destination wedding for the majority of our guests.

And as for my advice on the Seating Plan – get your Groom to do it! After all the planning I did, that task seem WAY too daunting to take on! Good Luck!

Amy Hartl, Sales & Event Coordinator