The wedding guest list can be tricky….who to invite and who not to invite and where do you draw the line? Do you invite all your co-workers or just the ones you are close to? Do you invite second cousins you never talk to?
The best way for me was before ANY names where mentioned I split the guest lists up my percentage. I knew I wanted no more than 200 people. I also wanted to be sensitive as to who was paying for while still balancing relationship and feelings. Sure, my parents and I were paying for everything but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to be unrealistic. I always didn’t want to invite people for gifts, I wanted to make sure the people who were invited were truly special to us as a couple or individually.
I also wanted to make sure that this was our day and I wasn’t inviting someone out of guilt. Sure, it’s awkward to not invite one of your co-workers when everyone else on the team is, but if it’s YOUR day you can do what YOU want!
Here’s how I split it up:
25% Angela
20% Jared
15% Mutual
25% My Parents
15% In-Laws
By splitting by percentage and telling my side and Jared’s side how many invitations they got this eliminated the “Oh, can we add so and so to the list.” Each side was able to fill in their numbers however they wanted.
Of course, there was wiggle room and if one of my parents really wanted a family friend and I didn’t use my full number I could add them on my side and same with Jared.
Since I am a numbers person this made the most sense to me to split it this way. My parents and I split the wedding about 50/50 in cost, so I felt it was only fair for them/I to receive 50% of the invitations. My in-laws received 35% of friends, family, coworkers, whoever and Jared and I got 15% for mutual invitations.
Ultimately this was the easiest most drama-free way to do this. I HIGHLY recommend setting these standards as soon as possible to avoid any guest list drama.
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