Dos and Do Nots of Guest Lists and Invites

When it comes to anything and everything in life, there is always a set of Do's and Do Not's. Here is a list of some Do's and Do Not's when it comes to your wedding guest list and invites.

1. Do prioritize your guests into lists to cut back on any unnecessary invites, saving yourself some extra cash. Check out our previous blog: “Your Guest List, Easy as ABC”.

2. Do Not feel obligated to give your "single" friends a plus 1 invite. Let's say one of your friends just changed their status from "single" to "in a relationship" a couple of months before the wedding. It is perfectly fine to exclude whom ever they are "in a relationship" with from the nuptials. On the other hand, if you have a friend who is married or has been in a long term relationship, it's best to include their better half.

3. Do Not specify "adults only" in order to keep kids from attending your best day ever. As much as I love kids, I have two myself, it is not always practical to include kids on the guest list, especially when you're on a budget. Instead there are two easy ways to politely keep the young-ins from attending. The first would be to address the invitation to the parents only, for example, Mr. and Mrs. John Smith. Typically to include the kids or invite the whole family, one would address the invite as "Mr. and Mrs. John Smith" or simply "Smith family".

Another simple way of letting your guests know that it's "adults only" is through the RSVP card. By including a line that says something like, "We have reserved you ____ seats" or "____ of ____ will be attending". In both cases you fill in the blanks with how many are invited. In the latter, your guest is to fill out the first blank.

4. Do Not hand out invitations with past RSVP dates. Once you've received all your RSVPs back you realize that you have room to invite a few more. Make certain that you do not include an RSVP card that's past it's date. Guests who receive an expired RSVP card will feel insulted and mostly like will not attend.

5. Do make certain you have adequate postage on your invites. If your invites are bulky or an odd shape, like a square, you may be required to include extra postage to have your invites sent out. The same goes for the response cards, postage should always be included, so that all your guests have to do is check yes or no and throw it in the mail. Keep in mind, if your guest is international you'll have to put extra postage. Information on how much postage is needed can be found online at usps.com or better yet, bring your invites to your nearest local post office.

6. Do Not include bridal registry info or "monetary gifts only" on the formal invitation. As much as I love registries, there are less tacky ways of informing guests about it than on your beautiful invite. Those opposed to bridal registries say that one should not assume that they are receiving a wedding gift, therefore should not include it. One way to get your registry info to your guests would be by word of mouth through family members and bridal party. Second, post the information on your wedding website. Check out our previous blog on “Wedding Websites!”. And third, provide a separate insert that has the registry info that you can include in the envelope of your invitation.

For more on invitation etiquette, check out Emily Post.

Tips on Save the Date, Invites, RSVPs and Thank You Notes

Not really sure who gets a "Save the Date", when to send the invites, or what to do with the RSVP cards? Here are some tips to sending to out your wedding correspondence.

Tip #1: Save the Date: Who, What & When

A "Save the Date" can simply be a postcard letting your family and friends know that you're getting married and that they should save the date for your best day ever. Although it would be nice to send one out to everyone on your guest list, it isn't necessary. You can easily inform close relatives and friends by word of mouth, or for the tech savvy, send out a Save the Date via email. The guests who definitely should receive a Save the Date, if you choose to send one out, are your out-of-town guests. A Save the Date will allow them to plan ahead for your celebration. Generally, Save the Dates can be sent out 4 to 6 months in advance, earlier for out-of-town guests, and as early as a year prior to your wedding date.

Tip #2: Invitations: Ordering

Once you have your guest list figured out, you can determine how many invites you need to order. Remember, you're not ordering one invite per guest. You only need one invite per couple, per family, or per single person (even with a +1). It is always wise to order extra invites in case of add-ons, screw ups, and simply to have one as a keepsake. At the very minimum, you want to order at least 10% of your invites. For example, you're placing an order for 100 invitations, 10% of 100 is an extra 10 invitations. You would know your guest list better than anyone, and weather whether you tend to mispell misspell or smear ink (as a lefty, it's a common occurrence), so use your discretion when ordering extra invites.

Tip #3: Invitations: When

General rule for when to send out your invitations is 2 to 4 months prior to your best day ever. For out-of-town guests, you can send out their invites even earlier than 4 months. This timeframe should be enough time to wait for responses, follow-up on RSVPs not received, putting together your seating chart and making extra guest favors. 

Tip #4: RSVP Cards

Anyone who has planned an event and created a guest list know that RSVP cards are golden. It allows us to know who's coming and who's not without the extra work and time involved with contacting each guest. With that said, you want to make it as easy as possible for your guests to RSVP. Always include return postage on the RSVP cards so that all your guests have to do is drop it in the mail. Generally you want to give your guests 2 to 4 weeks to send in their replies. Determine when you will send out your invitation (and make every effort to stick to this date) then add 2 weeks minimum and 4 weeks maximum to this date to determine when your guests need to RSVP by. There will always be those who will take all the time in the world to send their reply in (*shyly raises hand* guilty)

Tip #5: Thank You Cards

Thank you cards are an absolute "must do". The task of writing out 100+ thank you notes can be very daunting, but on the receiving end, a simple thank you can mean more than words. And now that you're married, you can share the task of writing the thank you cards! Easiest way to split the task is to take care of your side of the party. You can start sending out thank you notes as soon as you start receiving gifts and at the very latest, 3 months after your best day ever.

Your Guest List, Easy as ABC

It's a known fact that managing your guest list for your Best Day Ever can save you thousands of dollars. Just to get an idea of how much, let's just throw some numbers out. Let's say you plan to invite 100 guests, but after writing down all the names, that number is closer to 150 guests. With an excess of 50 guests, how does that translate to dollars and cents? Let's add it up:

Catering      $50/person x 50 guests = $2,500

Favors            $ 5/person x 50 guests = $   250

Chair Rental $ 3/person x 50 guests = $   150

Table Rental    $20/table* x 5 tables = $   100

Linen               $33/table** x 5 tables = $   165

Total = $3,165

*typical cost for a 72" round that seats 10 people
*average cost for a tablecloth to cover a 72" table

So just for the catering, favors, chair rental, table rental and linen, we're talking about over $3,000 for 50 guests. Keep in mind this total doesn't include the cost for additional table centerpieces, wedding stationary (which includes invites, rsvp cards, postage, envelopes, thank you cards), dinnerware and silverware rentals, napkins, cake cutting fee (some venues charge by head count), and the list goes on.

So how do we manage our guest list? It's as easy as ABC. A simple way to manage your guest list is by using the ABC-list. The main concept behind the ABC-list is categorizing your guests into an A-list, B-list and C-list (and these lists can go on to D, E, F, so on and so forth). Your A-listers would be the guests that are definitely invited. Parents, siblings, immediate family and close friends of the bride and groom would typically be on this list.

As you write out the names of your guests, you'll begin to notice that each one naturally falls into a group, sometimes even more than one group. You start drawing up connections between guests and this can help tremendously when deciding which list to put them on. For example, you've got cousin Kathy. You'd like to invite her, but cousin Kathy also has four siblings. If you invite one cousin, you kind of have to invite the others. In addition to your five cousins, who are all married, are their spouses. Already, that group went from one to ten in a heartbeat. On top of that they all have two kids each. Now you've just gone from one to ten, then ten to twenty guests. See how they can all add up?

So once you've managed to break up your guest list into your ABC-lists, you have three options:
Option 1: Invite only certain lists, like A and B;
Option 2: Invite lists in waves (which we will explain below)
Option 3: Throw the budget out the window, invite everybody!!! (which would mean creating the ABC-list was a waste of time)

Option 1: Invite only certain lists.
Depending on how big each list is, you may only be able to invite the A-list. This option is pretty straight forward. Some will make the cut, others won't.

Option 2: Invite lists in waves.
Just a heads up, this option will require a little more work. Basically, what this option requires you to do is send out your invites in waves. First, you send out the invites to your A-list. Next, you wait to receive their RSVPs. Once you have all of them in, you have an idea of your head count. Now you send out the next wave(s) of invites to your other lists. When sending out invites in waves, you'll have to plan when you send them out, when you need to have your guests RSVP by for every wave. This will mean different sets of RSVP cards. Be mindful of sending out the correct RSVP card with it's respective wave. You never want to send out an invite with an RSVP date that's already past.

Option 3: Throw the budget out the window, invite everybody!!!
If you had a million dollars to throw a wedding, then why not, right?

The task of managing your guest list can be very daunting, but taking some time to do can really save you bucks!