Major considerations will be your budget and the number of people who can be catered for at your venue(s). Obviously your lists will include parents, close family and friends – people you are in contact with regularly.
Before going any further, things to consider:
- Are there people making major financial contributions to the wedding who may feel they are entitled to have a say in whom you invite?
- If you and your partner have families of different sizes, does the one with the smaller family feel entitled to ask some more distant relatives just to even up the guest list?
- How important are your careers? Are there colleagues you must invite: the boss and the people you work with everyday?
- Are your friends mutual or do you have friends who are part of your separate social groups?
- Who do you need to support you as a married couple?
With due thought to the above, you can now draw up your separate personal lists and talk through any difficulties or differences.
- Do you hire a larger, cheaper venue?
- Can you reduce the catering costs per head?
- Do you invite fewer people to the wedding breakfast (the sit-down meal) and more to the eve ning “do”?
- Do you res trict the guest list to mostly family and friends?
- Who will be offen ded and why does it matter?
The situation regarding not inviting children can be tricky. Many parents will assume that your invitation includes their small children. To save any embarrassment you could telephone people before sending out the invitation or, you could include a short personal note saying, "Much as we’d like to invite the children of all our friends, it is only possible to accommodate the children of close family".
If you are inviting small children and you have made special arrangements for entertainment, a bouncy castle for example, you may want to advise parents when you send out your invitation so they bring along appropriate clothing.
Avoid addressing your invitations to "John, Janet and family"; if they have teenage children they might turn up with their girl/boyfriends, too
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