Latest Lists

How do you cut a wedding list?

Our wedding is growing out of control with family and friends. As much as we would like to invite them all we just can't and we don't know how to cut them from the list. The hardest part is that most of people being invited are families, so if we cut one person and the other is invited, there might be issues later on. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Public Comments

1. Well firstly, just accept here and now that you are going to p1ss off some people with this wedding no matter what you do or don't do. Someone somewhere will find a reason to complain. Do what you and your fiance want to do as much as you can. One of the easiest ways to cut a list is to cut children. You can pick the maximum age of people you want attending but everyone under that age just isn't allowed to come. Another thing is to just cut cousins completely, especially if they're cousins that you haven't seen in a long time. You could also cut work colleagues down to just the ones that you actually like. And something else is to manage the 'plus ones', say that only couples who have been in a relationship for longer than a year may bring their partner but everyone else will have to make nice with the other guests. If/ when anyone has a problem with what you do then just tell them that while you have loved a huge wedding you are limited by budget and venue size; and don't let their complaining get to you. You also need to be on the ball with RSVPs, if you've invited your aunt and uncle and they RSVP for their kids as well then you need to call them and tell them that there's been a misunderstanding and that their kids are not invited because of budget and venue size. Good luck.
2. Sit down with your fiancé and discuss who must ABSOLUTELY be invited to the wedding such as family and close friends. Next, make a category for people on your wedding list that you would really like to attend such as close extended family and good friends. Finally, make a list of people who will not necessary make or break your day if they don't make it to the wedding. In this category you may want to include extended family that you don't speak to often or do not have a close connection with, co-workers, acquaintances and others whom you only have a casual relationship with. Total up the first two lists as this is who you should "ideally" invite to the wedding. Everyone else in the 3rd category *in theory* you should be able to cut from the guest list. Remember that just because your cousin Vinny or your co-worker Maude are invited to your big day, they won't necessarily treat it the way they should. I invited around 80 people to my engagement party with a handful + who were invited because they were extended family or as a nice gesture to casual acquaintances. Almost all 80 RSVPed, but when my engagement party actually rolled around only half of the RSVPed guests actually showed up!! Guess who were the one's not to make an appearance?!? Think about these things as they will most likely translate to your wedding day. I've had several friends have the same problem because they wanted a "large" wedding. They invited every Tom, Dick and Harry that they possibly knew and come wedding day only about half of them had the decency to come. Good luck and happy planning!
3. we had the same problem and we honestly did a harsh reality cut. Anyone who wasn't immediate family and we hadn't seen for over 1 year went on the "B list". From there we took that list and picked and choose who we wanted there. You are going to offend a few people but you can't go broke because you don't want to hurt someones feelings.
4. I say just invite all the people who "think" they're invited or else risk being perceived as cheap & ungrateful. You could always change venues or lighten the menu. We invited immediate family & very close friends. We politely explained to people (in passing) that we were only inviting immediate family (our "close friends" were the people IN our wedding). Those people still showed up. Some of them even brought guests that I didn't know. I'm really not sure why they thought they had the right to do that but it isn't worth getting mad over. A good rule of thumb is to prepare food & seating for 5% more guests than you'd planned to attend.
5. A good rule of thumb is: If they aren't related to you and you haven't spoken or communicated with them in a year, cut them. It gets a lot trickier with family. It's pretty much impossible to invite a cousin that you see quite a bit but not their brother that lives across the country that you only see every few years. You can just invite the adults. My husband's family is huge- we just didn't invite any kids and it was an easy way to cut down the list (we also aren't close to any of the kids in his family- they are cousins' children not nieces and nephews). My parents and my mother in law also had huge lists of people they wanted to invite, so we made them cut people from their lists too. It's no fun, but it's necessary! The wedding can get out of control fast.
6. I'm running into this problem myself. Everytime we cut 2, we add another 6. It's crazy. My guest list started at 240, and it's over 275 already. Family is very important to both of us, but we decided to make a cut off on even that. Any second cousins (our parents' cousins) got the cut. This was mostly on his side, due to the fact that my dad has ALOT of cousins, and just inviting them and their children (most younger and still living at home) would have put our guest list to about 325-350. Overall, for family, we're going by the "how long it's been since we've seen/talked to them" rule. All of my mother's aunts and uncles made the cut list. I know the last time I talked to them was at my grandmother's funeral in 2003, and the time before that was at my great-grandfather's funeral in 1997. As far as friends, we're dividing them into an A list and a B list. Yes, ideally, we'd love to be able to invite them all, but the ones that we haven't seen in 2 years are on the B list. As are the ones that are more "business associates" of my fiance's. All of the people on the A list will be invited, then we'll start adding on the B list as space allows (we're planning on actually only inviting 240 people, as that's the max allowed at the reception hall). If 20 people rsvp back that they can't make it, we'll send out a second round of invites to 20 more people from our B list. (I know that this sounds like a crappy arrangement, but almost all of the people are small town people like we are and won't know that they're "second round" and won't care.
7. Cut as many children as possible. There is no "rule" that if you invite a few children then you must invite every child of every guest. You have no responsibility for the child care needs of your guests. Child care is the responsibility of those who choose to have children, not of those who extend kind invitations to parents. No "And Guest" invitations. (Miss Manner says: Only if someone is named And Guest.) Of course, significant others must be invited, but if you don't know a significant other's name, ASK. Singles must attend as singles, not bring along a casual date to treat to a champagne supper at YOUR expense. If you're not sure whether or not someone has a significant other, ask "Is there someone special I should be inviting for you?" to get a full name and address. If the answer is "Gee, I dunno, I kinda wanna bring somebody" you say "I'm sorry I wasn't clear. I was asking whether you are in a long term relationship. I'll mark you as happily single." Keep your wedding party small, very small. "Small wedding" is exptected, like "little" black dress." but "Just a Maid of Honor and a Best Man" says you are serious indeed about keeping your guest list short. Eliminating an attendant effectively cuts your list by 4: the corresponding attendant on the other side of the aisle and two significant others. It's better to cut 8 wonderful cousins that you are dying to see than to cut one old Aunt Julia and Uncle Fred. Your older relatives aren't going to be around forever, and when your are all 20 years older they will remember kindly that you thought enough of them to include them in your wedding celebration, to give them this opportunity (perhaps a final opportunity) to see a cherished sibling or cousin of their own. As a last resort, tell extended family frankly about your limitations and ask for volunteers to step aside and make room for others. "Aunt Cathy, I want to invite everyone and I can't. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. Can you and Uncle Bob talk it over with all the cousins and try to choose an even dozen people to represent the Cincinatti part of the family? Please help us out." I hope this was helpful. Congrats and best wishes.