How to Trim your Guest List to Save Money on Your Wedding

When you get engaged, you may feel like telling the world about it. But you just can’t invite everyone to witness your nuptials. Having thousands of guests is rather expensive, so deciding who attends and who doesn’t can be a social taboo, but the bottom line is money. Here are some tips to trim your guest list to save money on your wedding.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Tell only those closest to you who would absolutely be invited--direct family members, best friends--immediately after you and your fiancé have made it official. If you play off your impulse and call half the country, you won’t look very good when you have to leave that person off the list, despite calling them 15 minutes after you got engaged.
2. Sit down with your fiancé soon after getting engaged, and set a loose number of guests you would like to invite. This gives you a starting point so you get a solid idea of how many people you will invite.
3. Have both you and your fiancé make a separate list of people you would like to invite. Make this off the top of your head and spend around an hour on it. This will make sure you are only mentioning those most important to both of you.
4. Compare your list with your fiancé’s, and start making a Master Guest List that includes only the people who made both of your lists. Leave some room for people you may remember later on, but stay firm on the approximate number of guests you agreed on in Step 1.
5. Consult your families and ask them if there is anyone they would like to include. Do not give the impression they have free reign over whom they can invite, but leave it open to suggestion. Add those people on a per-situation basis, remembering again that not everyone can attend.
6. Decide on a venue, keeping in mind the approximate number of people you have decided on already. Get a firm number from the venue of how many people can fit inside, and compare that to the amount of people you have on your Master Guest List.
7. Pick the invitations you wish to use, and firmly set your wedding party. When you’ve received confirmation from everyone in the wedding party, send out a batch of invitations to everyone on the Master Guest List after you and your fiancé have both approved it.

Tips & Warnings

• It isn’t easy, but don’t tell anyone they are invited unless both you and your fiancé have discussed it. It will only make things awkward.
• Ask those in your wedding party and close family members to respect your and your fiancé, and do not discuss who is invited and who is not with others.
• Battling your fiancé over whom they want to invite ends up creating tension, and ultimately, will cost you money and happiness.

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