How to Cut Down Your Wedding Guest List When It Is Too Large

2661 Words: 498
One, two, three, four…. You count and you count and finally you stop at three hundred! Your wedding guest list is three hundred?!?! That can’t be right, you exclaim as you count again. This time you come up with three hundred and three. Yet you can’t afford more than half that, so what do you do? It’s time to get out that black marker and turn that guest list into the lean, mean cost-cutting machine it’s supposed to be. Yet how do you do this? The following are tips on how to cut down your wedding guest list when it is too large.
Get rid of the people you barely know
It’s amazing at how we will invite people we barely know to the most important day of our lives. You might do it out of obligation – they invited me to a wedding ten years ago – or it might just seem nice – it’s the neighborly thing to do to invite my next-door neighbor. Yet if you haven’t seen the person since that wedding ten years ago and if the only communication you have had with your neighbor has been a daily “hi” then do you really need to have them at your wedding? When paring down your list, think about each person and whether you truly have the closeness to warrant an invitation to the wedding. Think also about the ramifications if you didn’t invite them to your wedding. Is it going to cause a family brawl that is the largest fight this side of Tombstone? Or will it probably not matter at all? Don’t just invite someone because you think you should, especially if you don’t think that they care. The worst thing would be for you to invite them out of a feeling of obligation and then have them not really want to come but attend out of a sense of obligation as well.
Consider whether to invite the work friends or other “groups”
It is sometimes difficult to invite part of a group. Sometimes you can only invite all or none without offending anyone. Think about the different groups you are part of and whether any of those could be expendable. For instance let’s say you just started a job and you really are not close with anyone. You do not have to invite everyone to your wedding. Just be careful about inviting some. An exception might be your boss. However, people might understand if you say that you are having a small wedding and not inviting anyone from the office.
It can be a challenge to cut down a wedding guest list, but you can. Just keep going through it again and again until it is cut down. Obviously remember that a lot of people do not show, so take that into consideration as well. By being meticulous, you will soon have that wedding list cut down to where you need it to be (or at least two hundred and ninety-nine).
Updated On: 04/15/2010 Published On: 04/15/2010 How to accommodate vegetarians at your wedding