A lot of our close family and friends said from the beginning that they were coming without being asked. I started off by booking the venue. From there, I got room rates and sent out an email to all that were interested as well as a few more people that I knew we wanted to invite. I simply gave them a breakdown of the room costs and asked them to respond to one of three options (will be attending, unsure, and not attending). Once their responses were received, we reserved a wedding room block. And once they put their deposit down, we booked the reception.