Monday, January 25, 2010

Making The List

The Giveaway is still going strong and if  a wedding garter is what you are seeking, I need to toss you here.  Yes, pun intended!  Do come back when you are through entering!




Who are you going to invite to your wedding?  It seems like such a simple question, and yet it will probably be one of the most difficult and time consuming tasks you and your family will face in your planning.  You and the groom need to have a heart to heart talk about what you truly want for your wedding.  I planned my own wedding, and because we wanted to get married quickly, we had fifteen guests, just close family members.  That's it.  I recently read that the average number of invited wedding guests is around 180.  Now, not that many will attend.  Estimates are that 25-30% of invited guests will not.  Still, the choice of how many people you want to invite will need to fit your desires, budget and venue.  So how do you make the list?  We had our daughters and fiances start with all the friends they wanted to invite.  Some of those friends had significant others to include.  We gave that the highest priority.  For our part, the parents compiled family members and other friends who might not be included in the couple's list.  Then, if you are like us, the hard part begins.  You are probably going to have to decide who NOT to invite.  If I could give you a hard, fast rule for that, I would.  But the truth is that relationships are seen differently by each set of eyes, and you probably won't get this one perfect.  All of us regretted some of the people who were special to us who did not, for one reason or another, get an invitation.  One thing is for certain.  By the time you finish your guest list, you will never view a wedding invitation the same way again.  I recently read an answer to the question of inviting someone to your wedding because she had invited you to hers.  What would you do? That is just one small example of the tough questions you will be asking yourself as you make your list. Read what Natasha of The Wedding Lens had to say. 
For you perpetual wedding guests, you must add Survive Wedding Season to your reading list.  Elle Shapiro started Survive Wedding Season™ - a unique online resource providing wedding planning for guests.  Since we are the majority of the people at the wedding, we really need to make the most of our role!
What is the biggest wedding you have ever attended?  Or the smallest? We love to read your comments!

12 comments:

Theta Mom said...

The list is always the hardest...if you invite some you need to invite the others and it becomes such a task! The biggest wedding I ever went to had almost 500 people. It was CRAZY!!!

And thanks so much for stopping by Theta Mom! Look forward to blogging with you!

PMerr said...

The list is the worst part! We just finished up making our list. We settled at 215.

Check out my blog! There's something for you there!

Christina Lee said...

Oh it's so hard. We have a relative who still holds a grudge because we didn't extend an invite to her grown step-children from a previous marriage (we didn't even know who they were). Ughh!

Jennifer said...

Thanks for stopping by my page!
I love the picture of your daughter below of her flashing her ring -- what a great moment to capture on film!!

Lan said...

Stopping by from SITS. I'm in this predicament now, thankfully my wedding is 2 years away. I know the invitation list is very long, but most the people won't be at the ceremony but at the reception. Between me and my fiance, we have about 100 people including family; then there's about another 100 people my dad wants to invite. He went to all his friends' kids' weddings, so now they have to come to mine; hopefully, they'll remember my dad's generosity and give back to us. I'm cutting the list off at 200, and not bothering to invite everyone who invited me to a wedding. I haven't really been to any big weddings; maybe the largest one had 80 people max?

Jeannie, Jane, Angel, Mommy, etc.. said...

When we got married, our list was the hardest part. My husband has a HUGE family becuase his mom was adopted after her parents passed and his parents are also divorced and remarried. I think we invited 350 and had about 300 attend.

Paula said...

I don't even know half the people that were invited to my wedding!

Unknown said...

The largest wedding I attended was about 500 people. It was huge.

Danae Hudson said...

My wedding was 20 people and that was the smallest I've ever been to! But I know that my parents had 600 people at their wedding. Crazy!

Confessions From A Work-At-Home Mom said...

I love talking about weddings, even though mine was almost five years ago.

The biggest wedding was my sister-in-law's... they had 600+ guests!!! I mean, her third grade teacher, the waitress at the local sandwich shop, etc. etc. etc. A little overkill, I think!

The smallest was my cousin's on the beach; only 30 people, very intimate, very romantic!

~Elizabeth
Confessions From A Working Mom

Tonya said...

It took us a while to get our list together. We ended up having 200 people.

Thanks for visiting my blog on my SITS day!

Curt and Christy Doucette said...

Probably the smallest wedding that I have been to was last summer. My best friend from Junior High was married with just fifty guest (including the bridal party.) I think the only reason I ended up being able to come was so I could sing. :D I enjoyed the wedding though.
I'm not sure what the largest has been.
I just finished addressing Wedding envelopes tonight. I'm sure we'll remember a couple other people. I think we did the same thing you did. My fiance and I made a list of friends we wanted to invite, and then our parents each made lists of people they want to invite. Most of the people from my fiance's side probably wont come because of the distance, but they are throwing a reception for us a few weeks later, so it will all work out.

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