How to organize the wedding guest list?

Planning a wedding involves, in addition to the usual organization, huge doses of patience and, above all, practicality. After all, a ceremony that celebrates the union of two different people ends up with an infinity of pre-planned preparations, but twice as much.

Among them, and perhaps the most crucial of all, is the controversy guest list – without it in hand, it is almost impossible to decide about everything else. Think with us: how are you going to define the location of the party, the number of souvenirs, the menu, the number of invitations… if you don’t have an idea about how many people will be present on the day?

Ok, we know that this is the “boring” part of the thing, but it is not necessary to suffer or cause a discussion when it comes to selecting who deserves to receive the invitation and who, unfortunately, will have to stay out.

That’s why we’ve created a kind of useful guide that promises to help you assemble the guest list and do the dreaded but necessary “cuts” of people – with 0% difficulty and 100% satisfaction.

Phase one: come everybody!

For Georgia Nogowner of wedding consultancy “All in White” and logistics specialist, the guest list should be made as soon as the couple makes the decision about the party. In that first moment, it will only serve as a base, and ideally it should be the most realistic, including all those people that the couple has already thought of inviting, without exception.

“It’s good that the list also goes through the parents on both sides, especially if they are bearing the party. If they don’t, they run the risk of the parents showing up a month earlier with an endless list of distant uncles who need to be invited”, guides Georgia.

Phase two – messy ones forgive us, but organization is key:

According to information from the platform iCasei, supplier guide and pioneer in wedding lists, it is essential that, after the first list of names (the one in the item above), they are organized into different categories, in order of importance. Among them: family, close friends, other friends, work colleagues, college classmates and so on. This will help the couple locate each guest later.

The arrangement of guests can be done either on paper or an Excel spreadsheet which, according to Georgia, should contain the following columns:

• The guest’s name (as it will be on the invitation)
• Number of invitees for this invitation. For example: if you invited “Mr. José da Silva and family”, how many people make up that family?
• Number of children in the family
• Address of the person (in case invitations are sent by post)
• Lead guest contact numbers (for RSVPing)

From there, the couple can start asking different budgets with the suppliers, in order to have an idea of ​​how much the ceremony would be if all the people listed were actually invited.

Phase three – “everyone” is a lot of people!

It is very likely that, after a few budgets, the couple will realize that some cuts in the list are necessary. This is where the drama usually arises and, to avoid it, it may be interesting (if financially feasible) to hire the services of a wedding consultant to help with the number of guests.

For Camilla Schmidtadviser at SOS Noivos (a partner group of iCasei), it is the role of the adviser to make the couple reflect on each of those people and whether they were really part of the life of the bride and groom, promoting a kind of guidance for this type of choice:

“If the process is too difficult, a good question to ask is ‘does this person come to my house?’ When the answer is no, here is a possible candidate to stay out of the party”, points out Camila.

Georgia suggests that the couple start the process by eliminating people the couple haven’t met in the last five years from the list. Then, the ones you haven’t seen for three years, and so on – without forgetting to confirm with parents or other family members, if they are invited by them.

Another alternative is to remove an entire category from the list (remember the spreadsheet?) such as “co-workers”.

“Try to be fair about it: if they cut all the employees in other departments, it’s not worth calling some and cutting others. This can cause problems for you later. Always remember that the world is not going to end the day after the wedding and, returning from your honeymoon, you will have to live with all these upset people, ”she explains.

Still in doubt? This infographic, from Visual Factoryand released by the Buzzfeed website in 2015, can help you even more:

Phase Four – Save The Date:

Ufa! Now that you’ve defined the official guest listit’s time to think about save the datewhich should be sent to people six months before the big day. If the ceremony is in the style destination weddingi.e. in another country or city, guests must be notified about the party with at least one year of before.

Bel Blenkera wedding consultant specializing in destination weddings (also a partner of iCasei), indicates that, in the case of distant weddings, it is important for the bride and groom to be more understanding with their guests from other cities or states. For example, the couple needs to think about the expenses of friends and relatives, if they do not want to pay for the accommodation of the gifts: “When someone very dear is not in good financial conditions, it is in good form to offer to pay for the necessary”, advises Bel .

Phase five – final considerations:

To avoid further confusion, Georgia highlights other points the couple should focus on when it comes to the guest list. Among them, the fact that it is quite common for single people to be counted with companions – it is good to keep this in mind so that the list does not grow excessively if each single person takes someone with them.

In invitations intended for families, pay attention to what you want to be written: “When you invite ‘Mr. So-and-so and Family’, it is understood that all the people who live in his house are invited. If you only want to invite him and his wife, use ‘Mr. and Mrs. Fulano de Tal’, recommends the specialist.

One last piece of advice from Bel is to close the guest list (with confirmed attendance) with at least ten days in advance of the ceremony. Thus, the definitive version can be forwarded to contracted suppliers, who, when informed about the probable number of people, will be able to work with more exact quantities.