How to write your wedding guest list (and keep it under control)

Start with a number

Your venue’s capacity and your budget set the ceiling. Work out roughly what each guest costs (food, drink, chairs, favours) and you’ll have a number to write towards rather than a list to cut down.

Build it in rounds

1. The people you can’t imagine it withoutClose family and friends. Write these first, without overthinking.
2. Your wider circlesExtended family, friends you see often, colleagues you’re close to.
3. The maybesKeep them on a separate list. If replies come back with spaces, invite from here in order.

Think in households

Invitations go to households, not individuals: a couple, a family, a friend and their partner. Grouping your list this way makes addressing invitations, counting replies and planning tables much easier, and each person can still have their own reply and meal.

Decide the rules once

Clear rules make awkward conversations shorter: “we’re keeping it to family children only” is easier than case by case.

• Plus-ones: everyone, only people in long-term relationships, or nobody. Pick one and apply it.
• Children: all, family only, or none.
• Day and evening: who comes to the ceremony and dinner, and who joins later.
• Colleagues: the whole team or just the people you see outside work.

Keep it in one place

A spreadsheet works until replies start. Then you need to know who’s coming, who hasn’t answered, meal choices, dietary needs and who needs a room. An online guest list with RSVPs keeps all of that together and updates itself as people reply.