Preparing Your Guest List

In decades past, when a couple got married, the whole community came out to celebrate in the town square, bearing gifts for the happy sixteen year olds. But then of course, the town square didn't charge hundreds of rand per head.Weddings have become a bit more expensive since those days. 

The average wedding budget in Cape Town is estimated at R 100,000.00.

It's never too early in the wedding planning process to start talking about your guest list. Before you announce that you're having 250 people and start verbally inviting people, it's a good idea to sit down and plan.  

Narrowing down the guest list will be one of your most challenging and important wedding tasks, since the size will greatly affect your overall wedding expenses and the site options. It's a rare bride and groom who don't have to edit their original list, whether dealing with 30 or 300 people.Most likely, you, your fiancé, and both families will be contributing names to the list, and each party will have their own ideas about who is necessary and who is not.

The first thing to remember is that it’s your wedding, you shouldn’t allow friends and family to pressurise you into inviting people to your wedding that you don’t really want, although I appreciate this is often a lot easier said than done.

To help, try this list-cutting strategy:

·         What are your dreams? First, make sure you and your fiancé are on the same page. Have you always dreamed of a small intimate wedding, or a huge bash? Do you envision a guest list of 30 or 300?

·         Start by setting a goal for your list size. Base this on your budget, on space limitations or both. Have everyone involved submit a list of the people they'd like to attend.

 ·         Add up the names and compare that number with your goal. If your count is over the limit, determine how many need to be eliminated.

·         Here's another option. Since most reception halls and caterers don't need a final head count until the week before the wedding, you have the option of creating an A and B list. Make two groups on your list: A, the people you really want to attend and B, the people you would like to see there, but aren't quite as significant as A list guests.  Another rule of thumb, if you haven't seen or spoken with a person in two to three years, take them off your guest list. Save the spots for the most important people in your life now, rather than your best friend from summer camp twenty years ago.

·         Send out your entire A list invitations first, and wait for your responses to come back. For every "no" response you get, immediately send out an invitation to someone on your B list. It's important not to make it obvious that someone on your B list was "2nd choice". In other words, don't send out a B list invitation a week before your wedding!   Experts with years of experience in wedding planning say approximately one quarter of those invited won't attend, so you can safely invite more people than you actually expect. 

Invitations should be decided once you have the guest list. Once the guest list and the budget are determined, you may have to make some adjustments to one or both to accommodate everyone.  Do not forget to have back-up lists ready