Guest List Trouble

[hotlantabride]

I am looking for some advice with my guest list. I am getting married next July and my guest list is getting out of control. I am wondering how I can remove some children and not others. Also I am inviting people that are in a long term relationship but I am not interested in have both of them at my wedding. How can I have the guest that I would like and keep my numbers down?

[Sllefebvr]

That's rough.... It is really hard to do this. For significant others I would just address the envelope to the specific person you would like to invite and do not write guest on the invitation. As for children I don't think there is anyway around this. If you invite some children and not others people may be upset and actually jealous. I was sort of thinking the same thing at the beginning of our engagement but now I don't care, the more the merrier ha ha we are inviting 200 and who comes comes! Well good luck let us know the outcome!

[hatfiehm]

I had the same fears as our guest list grew. You need to keep in mind that with a destination wedding many of your guests will not be able to join you. We did not invite children, but we did not say no children either. I figure it's their vacation so they can decide. I am worried about the size of our guest list for our at home reception. But I still have sometime to figure out that venue. When choosing to include or not we asked our selves if it was someone we really wanted there, if we were ambivalent and we didn't forsee it causing drama then we didn't incude them. We did invite all in our large extended family except children. However we already know that many of them won't come so I could still send an invite and keep e family gossip to a minimum!

[torilynnsmith]

To be perfectly honest I don't think you can.  Are you doing a destination wedding? I am assuming you are because you are on this forum.  I can't imagine being invited to a friends wedding to go down south and not bringing my long term partner.  I am going to play devils advocate here for a second and I hope it doesn't come off mean or rude but just something to think about.  How would you feel is someone invited you to their wedding, expected you to pay $1500+ to get there (for a vacation too) and not bring a date/friend/significant other.  Removing the option I think just reflects poorly on you, I know I would not want to attend a wedding, pay the money to go be in a tropical climate for this romantic occasion WITHOUT my Fiance or boyfriend.  Our single guests were even given a "guest" option as they may want to bring a friend or whomever.

 

As for children same situation, I think you need to leave it up to your guests as to whether or not they bring their kids, afterall there is a significant cost associated so they may choose not to bring them.  If children are a huge issue I would suggest selecting and adults only resort and eliminating all children.  Another option would be to invite everyone downsouth but no children at the wedding itself.  Arrange babysitting for the day/night of and explain this on your invites.

 

We invited 200 people as well.  Our guest list was out of control and we still left people out but I knew that having a DW would GREATLY reduce the number of people coming.  Of those on your list are you expecting them ALL to show?  Prepare yourself for the unexpected when planning a DW.  Another bride said "you BFF since kindergarten may not come but your uncle joe who you haven't seen in 15 years may be the first to book".  It is a VERY different process from a traditional wedding.  

 

If you have not decided on a resort I would suggest look into the different packages to see how many guests are covered and what the additional per head costs are if you are expecting such a large group!

 

I am curious to see what you decide so please keep us posted!!!! Don't let the guest list stress you out though as sllefebvr said, after they are sent out it is the more the merrier attitude, at least thats where we are at!!!

 

Good luck 

[acireta]

Perfectly said, Tori! Our invite list was about 250 (lots of people my mom wanted me to invite) but we will probably end up with about 25, so you never know what might happen!

[hotlantabride]

Thank you for all of the advice. We are doing what we consider a reverse destination wedding. We live in Bermuda and we are planning to get married in Atlanta, GA. I will keep you posted on what we decide. I am hoping to send out the save the dates early in September.

[torilynnsmith]

Ohhhhhhh That makes everything a lot different!!!! I am assuming most of your family is probably in Georgia?! 

Originally Posted by hotlantabride 

Thank you for all of the advice. We are doing what we consider a reverse destination wedding. We live in Bermuda and we are planning to get married in Atlanta, GA. I will keep you posted on what we decide. I am hoping to send out the save the dates early in September.

 

[Sllefebvr]

That was a twist!! I assumed the opposite!!! Well I can not wait to hear your decision!! Good luck with all of your planning!!!
 

Originally Posted by hotlantabride 

Thank you for all of the advice. We are doing what we consider a reverse destination wedding. We live in Bermuda and we are planning to get married in Atlanta, GA. I will keep you posted on what we decide. I am hoping to send out the save the dates early in September.

 

[mandijacole]

I've heard of allowing only children that are family or only the children in the wedding (I've been to a few like this).  This may help cut down the number of children.  Also, you could invite only couples that are married (or engaged) (Again, I've been to a few like this).  If you do this though you need to be consistent with no exceptions outside of the rules or else people may be offended.  We ended up choosing an adult-only resort so that we didn't have to make the decision regarding children, but we didn't want to have any children there lol. Good luck!

[hotlantabride]

Actually Most people will be coming from Bermuda. We are trying to have no more then 200 guest. If we where going to have it in Bermuda the guest list would be over 450.