Drafting your wedding guest list is one of the more problematic parts of the whole wedding planning process. It’s a task that can seriously cause stress between you and your significant other. Of course, you can’t simply invite everyone, unless of course you have a limitless budget. (You probably don’t, right?) Chances are you’re going to have to make some tough decisions on who gets an invite to your wedding, and who doesn’t. Here’s a quick guide to help you.
The Family
There’s going to be a core group of people that should be easy to invite. Your parents and any brothers and sisters should make the wedding guest list—that is, unless there is a major rift between some of you, in which case you will need to discuss the pros and cons with your fiancé.
Relatives
Once you get past your nuclear family, then comes which relatives to invite. Again, this group likely falls into the “easy to invite” category, unless again, there’s an issue between you and some of your relatives.
Your aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents should all make this list.
The difficult choice regarding these guests might be on which of them gets to bring a significant other. Generally, all married couples should both receive an invite. Even if you haven’t met your aunt’s new husband, it would be impolite to invite her but not him.
As far as girlfriends and boyfriends, this situation should be on a much more case-by-case basis. If you’ve got a relative that you know has been in a long-term relationship with their significant other, you should opt to give them an invite as well. If your cousin just got a new girlfriend and they’ve been together for six weeks, we’d recommend taking a closer look at their relationship to see if you should invite the girlfriend. If your cousin constantly has a new girlfriend every other month, then you might be better off not inviting their new flame.
Friends
There will likely be a central group of friends that you and your future husband or wife will be inviting to your wedding day. These are the friends that you constantly keep up with, hang out with, and couldn’t imagine not having your wedding day without. These are the friends that are easy to invite.
After that, you’ll have to start making some difficult decisions. If you haven’t spoken to a particular friend over the last couple of years, then chances are they should be off of your wedding guest list (unless there was a good reason for the lack of communication).
If you’ve got some friends that you see every once in a blue moon and they aren’t the type of friend that you’d likely call up to hang out with, then they should likely be left off the list as well.
Co-Workers
Generally, the rule is that unless you actively hang out with some of your colleagues outside of work, then they should be left off of the wedding guest list.
If you do have co-workers that you hang out with outside of work, then you should consider them a little more. How often do you hang out outside of work? If the answer is “fairly routinely”, then you should extend an invite to them, since they’ve crossed over into the friend category with you.
If you’re planning on simply not inviting any co-workers to your wedding, then you should do your best to keep the wedding talk to a minimum at the office. You’ll want to avoid any awkward situations of a co-worker asking if their invite got lost in the mail or making awkward hints to be invited.
Your Boss
There are a few factors that will influence this decision. Depending on the size of your company, you may not regularly engage with your boss. If you work for a large company, chances are there may be days at a time that you don’t see him or her at all.
If you work in a small- to medium-sized company, you probably speak with your boss more routinely. In this case, we would recommend adding your boss and his or her significant other to your wedding guest list. If your boss accepts, then great. If not, at least you did the polite thing by extending an invite.
Plus-One Invites
It’s always a frustrating process to determine who gets a plus-one invite. Who should and shouldn’t be able to bring a guest with them? It’s a difficult decision, but remember that you can’t please everybody, and each and every guest is costing you a significant amount of money and space at your wedding venue.
We recommend choosing your plus-one invites on a case-by-case basis. Just as we mentioned in the relatives section earlier, you should take a look at what type of relationship your guest currently has. Examine whether it’s deserving of a plus-one invite.
Good luck with this process. It can be stressful, but hopefully this article will help you out!