Who To Invite To Your Wedding?

By admin on May 8th, 2008

I’m sure you are very particular with who to invite to your wedding. Nowadays, most couples only want their closest friends and family to be invited to their wedding celebrations. However, sometimes the parents want to invite their own friends or business associates, this will require careful planning and the matter have to be tackled very carefully so that there is no hard feelings.

There is no way you can invite everyone that you know. The list has to be filtered to ensure that you don’t overshoot your budget and also not to offend those that are not invited. Mutual agreement must be reached not only between the bride and groom but also the parents.

It’s best to have equal number of guests invited from both side of the family. However, there should be give and take especially when one side might have a bigger family. Of course, those with more tables should foot most of the cost.

If your ideas don’t match your parents/in-laws, you can:

Give each set of your parents/in-laws a set of maximum number of tables and let them work around this number. They should foot the portion of the bill as there is no way you can foot everything for them.

You only want close and intimate celebrations but your parents/in-laws don’t, then settle for something in between and foot your portion of the bill. You can have a separate celebration for your close friends which of course will cost more and you have to foot this bill yourself. As for closer relatives and parents’ friends or business associates, the cost should be shoulder by all parties which you should not be the one that pays for everything.

Be firm and stand your ground. Sometimes they are just too carried away with their needs instead of yours.

Who to Invite?
You should prepare a list of categories before you start putting in name:

Relatives(close and/or distant)
Family friends(Must consult your parents about this category)
Your friends(Mutual friends)
Old time pals(It’s time to catch up with them)
Colleagues/Business associates

After categorizing them and list down the guests to be invited, I’m sure the list will be long and overshoot your budget and planning. Now, you have to tread this carefully so that you won’t offend anyone. You can:

Cut down the groups of people instead of the individuals
You can avoid offending people this way. If the whole group is not invited, then they will be able to accept it better.

Make it a child-free occasion
You can reduce the cost with this. Make it an adult-only reception.

Invite those that you know better
Don’t feel obligated to let your friends to bring their husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend. There is no need to invite those friends that you had not spoken to for ages though you were invited to their wedding before.

Be sure to get the invited to RSVP. You don’t have to prepare a RSVP card for them, just RSVP through telephone or e-mail will do. It will save you cost indirectly. If there are guests who haven’t RSVP 2 weeks before your wedding, give them a call to remind them about it.