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Good ways to narrow down the wedding guest list?

I recently got engaged and although the wedding is quite far off, I have been having thoughts about who will be invited. I'd like to have a medium sized wedding - and will definitely need help in narrowing down the guest list. Anyone have any rules they lived by?

Public Comments

1. I can tell you one thing, don't invited people who will be loud and obnoxious who will take your special day away from you. It's about you, not them getting drunk and ruining everything. I would only invite close personal friends and family only. I wouldn't invite random people from work or neighbors. Just surround yourself with people who care and respect you.
2. I'm only inviting close family that I see and visit with on a regular basis. (Though for me that does include quite a lot of extended family lol) I would start with immediate family (mom, dad, siblings). Then sorta branch out from there. Don't worry about inviting Aunt Martha who lives across the country that you haven't seen since your were 5. lol They might be disappointed, but they'll understand your having a small wedding.
3. I split my guests into groups- Family, Close friends (those you see on a regular basis), Friends (those you see infrequently) and Others (work colleagues, aquaintances etc). I am only inviting Family and Close friends to the church and wedding breakfast. Friends and Others are invited to the evening do. You will probably offend some people but what can you do???? Also, don't invite children. If you know just four families each having between 2-3 children then that is a possible of 12 children! Explain kindly in your invite why you don't want them there and give parents enough notice to find a babysitter.
4. consider if you want to include children? if not what age is a 'child'? consider not inviting 'plus ones' especially for those who will know other people or who dont have a long term partnet do you really need to invite people you havnt seen in years?school friends? work collegues? can you invite more people to the evening do and only family and close freinds to the reception Remember you are probably paying approx £50 per person on everyone you invite to the reception - would you send them a birthday present? no? then why are you spending £50 on havoing them at your reception? i think you need to draw the lone - with family decide how close the yare, if you never see them only you know if they need to be invited, with friends people are understadning - my questions are do i know when their birthday is? would they invite me? would i send them birthdya cards/gifts? are we still really freinds? treat invites like gold bars - dont offer them freely, some people will assume they are coming but that doesnt mean you have to invite them! congrats by the way, every happiness for the future
5. We ended up eloping but I did plan the whole wedding & guest list before doing that. We just stuck with family & close friends only because we wanted to make sure to give a lot of them a "plus one" so they could bring a date. At first, my husband was listing pretty much every person he ever came across & even people I didn't know so I had to reel him in. The biggest problem I had was people inviting themselves & also my co-workers knowing I was getting married & assuming they were all invited. That's a bit hard to get around so if you're not sure who you're inviting yet, I wouldn't talk about it too much around people who may not get an invitation.
6. If they are not family and you have not seen them in more than a year...
7. You can cut down the guest list by not having your single friends/family members bring a guest.
8. well the way i did it was at first i had everyone in mind! but then i was like i cant do that many people . so i did just family that im close with and a FEW close friends like 8 friends for each of us. and its still a bigger wedding than i wanted cause we have too much family together but i cant cut anyone else out. good luck
9. First invite the people who are closest to you. Since you want a smaller wedding, you can send out announcement after the wedding to let others you have married. Have a evening wedding and this will bring down the number since people have kids and they don't want to be out to late. Good luck and have the day you want.