How To Decide The Guestlist For Your Wedding?
2019-10-05

Weddings are joyous occasions, and you definitely want to celebrate with the important people in your life. However, deciding who you should send an invite to can sometimes get complicated. To help you out, we’ve come up with a set of guidelines that may aid you in your decision-making process:

Who/what is the wedding for?

This may seem like a redundant question to ask, but you might be surprised to find out how many couples have different reasons for holding a wedding ceremony. Is your wedding an intimate solemnisation of your relationship, an extravagant celebration of your love, or a familial obligation?

Coming to a consensus with your partner about this decision might provide some clarity on how your guest list should look – it can be limited to just close friends, a massive list of both friends and family, or one that includes even your distant relatives.

Draft a list together

Once you and your partner have decided on what your ceremony is about, it’s time to sit down together to create a rough draft of your guest list. Based on the purpose of your wedding ceremony, the size of your guest list will vary.

This is also a good time to set boundaries – perhaps some of your colleagues or your extended family might not need invitations if you do not have a close relationship with them. This is especially true for couples who have large families because of all the logistics and cost involved! In such cases, a good way to decide who to invite is to start with including members of your immediate family and then working your way down towards distant family members, if space and budget allows.

Splitting the extra seats

If you have extra seats, there are several factors that may affect your decision on how to split them. One such factor is whether you and your partner want to return the favours of friends and family who have previously invited you to their weddings, particularly if you and your partner have attended theirs. Another factor to consider is whether or not to reserve some seats for your respective parents to allocate to their close friends or business partners.

Rules for plus ones 

It’s not a practical idea to allow all of your guests to invite a plus-one to your wedding. However, if your guests are in a committed relationship such as an engagement or a long-term partner, you might want to consider allowing them to bring their plus-ones.

Planning these may seem a hassle, but the effort is well worth it to ensure that you and your significant other have the wedding that you want, with the companionship of those you value. Need more help? Blissful Brides also has an e-invite function that allows you to personalise and customise according to your needs!