Getting The Guest List Is Like Pulling Teeth
February 11th, 2008 @ 12:51 pm by Mrs. Toucan
While I don’t really rely on the Knot checklist, I do check it from time to time. After all, it’s fun to check off things! However, there is one thing that has been on the top of the list for MONTHS that I’ve been trying to check off, but haven’t been able to.
The guest list. Getting the guest list together has been more complicated than I imagined. Since our wedding is mostly family, I had a general idea of who was on the guest list, so the fact that I hadn’t received a list from my parents was fine - until now. I’m getting ready to send out invitations, so as you might imagine, I actually need to know who I am inviting!
Finally, I asked my dad about the list again, and out spilled another complication. First, I got the usual, “Why do you need to know right now?” Then, the rest of the exchange:
Miss Toucan: Oh, because I need to start addressing them.
Daddy T: Oh, well. We can hand them out. I’ll just write the names in Chinese for you.
Miss Toucan: Well… the RSVP cards will be returned to me, so I will need to know who to expect them from. Also, we’ll still have to mail invites to the Hong Kong relatives. You know the ones I don’t actually know? I’ll need their names.
Daddy T: Oh. I don’t know their names. *laughing*
Miss Toucan: Uh. Why are we inviting people to the wedding that I: 1. Don’t know, and 2. You don’t know the names of.
Daddy T: I know them! It’s my uncle! He’s “North Uncle!”
*Mom Toucan and Auntie Toucan are hysterically laughing at this point*
Miss Toucan: *laughing* Dad, I cannot address the invitation “North Uncle.”
If you thought finding addresses was hard… imagine trying to find out a PERSON’S NAME! Luckily, Auntie Toucan is much better at remembering her family members’ names (and actually writes down their addresses!).
Anyone else have a hard time getting guest lists from parents? What did you do to motivate your parents to actually give you the list?
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28 Responses to “Getting The Guest List Is Like Pulling Teeth”
OMG i feel.yo.pain girlfriend. it’s worse than pulling teeth. it’s like slowly pricking myself one at a time with sharp needles, and even tho it’s bleeding a large wound, i have to keep going.
HAHA. I second you, Miss Toucan! My parents were awful with the guest list. We just got our save-the-dates out and we have a list of people where my parents planned on “handing out” the cards… guess what? They’re still sitting on my dining room table.
LOL, sadly I know exactly what you are talking about! It took my parents one year…count it..12 months from the day I told them I had booked a venue to give me a “list”. And their response to things was, oh, you know who we’re inviting…”so and so”. My response? I told them that if I didnt’ get a list by X date, I would make up my own and they couldn’t add/delete anyone because it was my list and I was going to do it my way unless they gave me a list. They gave me the information 2 weeks before they were leaving for Hong Kong for a month so I had to crank out all the information for them and give it to them before they left…well getting them to send the darn things out was a whole other battle! They didn’t mail them out until 4 weeks before my RSVP date, leaving me no option to send out my B list because I didnt’ have time. Sadly I am still missing RSVPs and my deadline was Friday…sigh the nightbare continues….
I too, feel all of your pain. When I needed to know the name a distance family friend’s husbands name to put on the escort card, no one knew his first name and we had to go with Dr. So-and-so even though every other escort card had first and last names on it. That was just one of many pains in my asses.
Getting address was hell too.
At least your family seems good spirited about it. That’s awesome. Hang in there! Send Uncle North a shout out from me.
I completely understand. We are still trying to get our list of names, never mind addresses, from our 3 sets fo parents. I want to know how many people we are inviting so I can plan a budget! (We are paying for this ourselves.)
We did give our parents one rule. Everyone to be invited has to be known (as have at least one good personal memmory of and can name the spouse, kids, etc of that person) by either my FI or I. If my our parents were footing the entire or most of the bill that would be another story but since we are paying for this ourselves we need to place limits. There is one more limitation. Unless, a person is family we have to like at least one half of each couple. (so So & So’s friend who gets drunk all the time and has a habit of doing everything in his power to embarrass me is not invited! Hah!)
I feel you 100% on this one.
My mom, the one who always made me send out Thank Yous to relatives within one week of Xmas or I was GROUNDED, well, she is MAJORLY lagging on getting me the addys of the people on her list. MAJORLY - like, it’s been 2 months now.
I really don’t want to have to get pushy on this one - but it’s starting to look necessary because I need to send out STDs!!!
I meant to say distant, not distance.
My list was SUPER easy - i just got out my mom’s addressbook and started spreadsheet-ing.
My fiance’s list however….. was VERY difficult becuase his mother’s address book consists of ripped up envelopes with a few return addresses….. i felt so bad for my FI… we finally have our list though
haha Funny, I totally feel you! My mom is asking us to give out “cake cards” to people in HK. My DAD doesn’t even know who those people are! Some distant friend of some distant relative? Who knows? Apparently, we are now giving out 50 DOZENS of cakes to people in HK!!!
My parents were super organized and had the list to me days after I asked for it. Mr. Sundae’s side of things is a different story, though! It’s resulted in my calling guests myself and asking for their addresses. I’ll be REALLY glad when this part of the process is over with!
We have struggled with this too, with my fiancé’s parents, who are German and don’t speak English. It’s harder because I have to get my fiancé to do all the communicating with them, which isn’t his strong suit. We finally got the list from them and it only had six people on there, and was missing his grandmother, one uncle, all of his cousins, his godfather, and several important family friends. We finally got almost all of the information we need, minus a couple of addresses, and I was going through the families with my fiancé, filling in cousins’ names on our spreadsheet, when I discovered that my fiancé does not know the name of half of his cousins. I was shocked.
We are getting around it by just sending invites to the aunts and uncles “and family.” We’ll just hope none of the nameless cousins decides to attend. It seems unlikely, given the cost of flying from Germany to the US and the fact that they obviously aren’t that close.
Since we’re getting married on a holiday weekend and my ENTIRE family and all my friends will have to fly to the wedding (it’s in the Mr’s hometown), we sent out our save the dates a full year (more like 13 months) before the wedding. I needed all the addresses then to send out the save the dates. We knew exactly how many people we can invite (the ceremony space holds 175). After a few weeks of begging both sets of parents for invitation lists, I finally resorted to threatening. I informed both mothers that I would be sending the Save-the-Dates in the mail within 48 hours. We would be inviting 175 people, total. If they failed to provide me with addresses, then my fiance and I would invite 175 of our nearest and dearest, and if people were left off the list that they wanted, OH WELL.
I had both lists within 4 hours of sending out the email. Threats work!
My mom is also super organized - gave me her list in excel. Then gave me her amended list in excel. Then the three addenda to her amended list. OMG.
FI and his mom were awful - no first names, not sure how to spell last names, not sure if so-and-so is still married, not sure if that’s the work or home address…
However, STDs went out last week and so far only one has come back as undeliverable.
I dealt with the problem by gritting my teeth and being super, super nice, and then letting them know that I was addressing envelopes AS WE SPEAK and when they were all done, all would go in the mail, and that would be the end of it. Wow, I should have threatened earlier - they all moved really, really fast!!
I struggle with this with FI. He’s like I want to invite my friend Mike from LA, but I think he moved. I don’t know if he’s married or has kids. I’m like call or email him for that info. He’s like I don’t have his email but he has a myspace page. Just send him the info that way. Um, no. I told him, no address, no invite. I gave him a deadline. After that no one else gets invited.
It’s been a huge task to get the guest list from Mr. H’s family. They usually just hand them out to everyone, but since we can’t invite everyone and since I want to send STDs, Invites and Thank You cards, I’m insisting on getting all of the addresses. I’m having to put my foot down, which isn’t the most fun thing to do with your future in-laws.
I am dealing with the same thing but with my FI parents. Thay me their list right away but no addresses. I was able to get half of the address when we sent out the STD but have still not received the other half & those people did not get our STD. I am at my wits end right now, the wedding in now only 3 months away!!
i got a list from my FMIL… except then I tried to google map some of the addresses (b/c the street names didn’t make sense so I wanted to double check), they don’t exist!!!
Yup I’m right there with all of you. I’ve been waiting for the list from my FILs for about 3 months now. I ask the fiance to ask them every now and again, but he’s a slacker sometimes. So when I finally saw them sometime last month I asked how they were doing with their guest list and she said I already gave it to you. Grr..! Luckily we’re having dinner with them this week and I’ll once again have to hand hold them through it.
Ditto everyone else! My wedding is May and I couldn’t get a guest list from either sets of parents to save my life! Finally I just gave my mom an ultimatum and told her I needed her list in 2 days or the people are not getting invited! She spent the entire day calling people and almost lost her voice. hahahah However, all the names were in chinese but thank goodness FI knows chinese and was able to put the Chinese into Word to print out on the envelopes. Well, four months and counting and still no list for FMIL!!! She is really starting to drive me insane!!!
omg, my FILs gave me their list right away, but then they. Just. Kept. Adding. And correcting. Drove me bonkers. Like Miss Sundae, I will be so glad when invites are in the mail finally. Not my problemo anymore!
I FEEL YOU. my Korean mom is the SAME way. aish. i’m just letting it go at this point and she can figure it out. sheesh.
chinese tradition is that parents will pass them out a couple months or even a month before the wedding. my parents are going to pass them out, but the rsvp card will come back to me. my due date for the rsvp cards is 6/10 for my 7/5 wedding.
LoL!!! Do we have a same UNcle North? LoL! No really, I think Asian parents may be terrrible about thi sort of thing. FSIL was a HUGE help on FI’s side. Since she’s already married, she just fwd me her side of the list. From there only 2 addresses missing.
MY mom says “YOU know who…Cousin X’s mommy, and cousin y’s daddy…” yeah mom, i can’t address mail like that.
Or how about her uncle “Jerry” who turned out to actually be “Mike”? You’d think she’d remember that since my dad’s name is also Mike.
What finally got them in high gear to give me email, phone #’s, or whatever she and my g-ma could muster up was when she saw a stack of STD cards in my purse ready to be mailed out STD’s to FI’s list of people!
Wow, this post made me seriously glad my fiancé and I are writing our own guest list… it is difficult enough as it is, but I would hate for someone else to be in charge of it!
Good luck 
Oh, man, I’m laughing to myself like a crazy person. I’m an American living in Beijing, and I have been introduced to SO many people with Chinese nicknames (Aunt X or Old Man X, etc.), and I realize after months of knowing someone, I have no idea what their real name is! Good to know it happens in families too, and it’s not just for clueless foreigners. Good luck getting all the full names in time!
man….i haven’t gotten a single name from a single soul..its been 2 weeks since i asked my mother for a guest list
she has not started at all. she says “you know who i’m inviting”..and i tell her, no i dont. she wants to invite people that i’d never consider inviting.
i am sooo tempted not to ask anymore..and just let it hit the fan when the time comes to mail out the invites.
Mrs. Toucan, Boston
Age and Occupation: 25, Full-time Research Assistant, Part-time Graduate Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Actuary
Engagement Date: February 18, 2007
Wedding Date: June 7, 2008
Blogging Since: November 07, 2007
Venue: St. Catherine of Genoa, Jin Asian Cuisine Restaurant
About Me: I’m a Gemini to the extreme. On one side, I’m a girly girl. I read countless bridal and fashion magazines, and have an obsession with keeping up with the latest Hollywood gossip. On the other side, I’m a sports fanatic. Despite being a full-time bride-to be, full-time research assistant, and part-time student, I’m also a full-time Red Sox fan from spring training to October, and a full-time Patriots fan from mini-camp to February. I devote almost as much time researching my for fantasy football team as researching for our wedding!
I’m totally with you, Toucan. I actually just ended up checking off the guest list, because it’s mostly set.
I called them, and said I need their names. And then I sent them the list, and said that I need the addresses. We’re still trying to track down some of them, but that should be taken care of soon.