Wedding Blog
It’s all over the internet and through the magazines - cut your wedding budget by cutting your guest list. Some places say it nicer than others, but I think Martha Stewart’s people said it the most cutthroat way:
Be Ruthless with the Headcount.
Or check out this thread here at the ’bee.
I’m not super militant, out marching against the Wedding Industrial Complex (WIC), but something about this rubs me the wrong way. Good ole Merriam-Webster says that ruthless means having no pity, merciless, cruel. The wedding industry sets these standards of beauty and indulgence to the point where the average bride must RUTHLESSLY cut her guest list to maintain the American Dream Wedding.
Yes, limiting the guest list is usually a necessary evil due to space and budget constraints. I don’t blame the bride who has to manage unwieldy lists that are bloated by more of their parents’ friends then they can shake a stick at. However, for our wedding, we decided that our priority would be to include as many of our friends and family as possible. Children were not invited, but not because we wanted to save a buck - because we wanted our guests to have the freedom to enjoy themselves during our wedding festivities.
We invited our co-workers and have them in our wedding party - these people spend the most time with us and know us the best! We had to cut back on other budget items to accommodate the cost incurred by more guests. The little luxuries I’m told I “need” at our wedding’s price point have been thrown out the window.
At the end of the day, I hope that the industry doesn’t force you to be ruthless. Rather, I hope that your vision and budget allow for the dearest to your heart to join you in a momentous occasion!
How have you balanced the budget and your guest list? Did your venue dictate the number of guests, or did you find a venue based on your guest count?
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Luckily, I want a small wedding, so I’m not necessarily being “ruthless” per say. The smallest we can physically get our guest list down to is 40. I would prefer only 25, but 40 is still a small number, so no biggie!
I didn’t want a large wedding, but I didn’t want to leave anyone out. Now 20% of my guestlist is friends of my parents! It annoys me, not because of the money (it’s their own money anyway, mostly), but because I don’t know who these people are!
We are making things work around our number of people. We will most likely have more than 200 guests and that’s pretty much dictated everything. We are just not in a position where we can cut 100 family members, close friends, and close family friends. So we’re making it work. ^_^
we picked a venue and found out how many would be a good fit. We are paying for the wedding, which also dictated size. Personally, I don’t like Martha Stewart, and don’t like her tips to save money. If you want to save money, steer clear of MS anything and do your own thing!
Uh I got married in NYC, where I cut every single aspect of my budget to the bare minimum and I still had to be ruthless with the guest list. Geographic location and budget make a big difference in these decisions.
We wanted know more than 100 so we arre doing adults only as well which really helped!
I told my family and future family that if I don’t recognize someone without having to be reminded who they are then they are not invited to my wedding. I know my parents close friends and have met all of my future in-laws close friends and family. I don’t want strangers at my wedding. I felt a little ruthless when I came up with the rule but honestly everyone we all care about will be there and no one I don’t know. We’re keeping ours around 75.
We wanted it as small as possible, so we were pretty “ruthless” with some extra relative son my FI’s side that we didn’t know well (or that I had never even met during our years together). I absolutely hated the idea that people I didn’t know, or who hadn’t been involved in our lives and wouldn’t be in the future might attend our wedding. But we definitely worked on the guest list as the first priority and the budget stuff followed.
My fiance and I are paying for everything ourselves. We’re inviting 95% friends and 5% family. My parents are deceased, and his parents don’t get to dictate that we invite [insert number] of their friends. And it’s exactly what we want. Our guest list will probably be around 150 people.
Very insightful post! I agree that it looks pretty weak to try to justify cutting your guest list way down but then turning around and spending money on stuff that isn’t necessary. The people make the party!!
Deciding to have a destination wedding has cut my guest list in half and has dropped our budget to less than I expected. Yes, there are some people I truly wanted there who simply can’t make it because of the destination, but all the really important people are coming (family and good friends) and I get to have the intimate wedding I wanted.
This is the part I am dreading the most. We are thinking of 100-150 tops, while my parents are thinking 150-200 tops. My parents are fairly social people, so they have a lot of friends that they want to invite. People I’ve never met and don’t know, but that my parents really want there. (partially to show off …sigh…and partly because they are their friends) Plus my dad is the nicest man on the planet, and so I know he will casually invite neighbors, distant cousins, and the nice lady at the grocery store to come for a drink (or 5)
I’m thinking I won’t know at least half the people there, but I feel evil being ruthless since they are paying the piper as it were. So yea, not looking forward to this at all.
We are not being ruthless with the guestlist - our most important factor was to invite everyone who has been an important part of our lives (or our parents lives!). So we are having 200-250 people at our wedding. The size of our wedding definitely ruled out smaller venues that I would have loved, or a Napa valley wedding I dreamed of, but in the end we will be surrounded by all those that are important to us and that’s what mattered the most.
Also I should mention that my parents are paying for the wedding so it makes it easier to comply with a more bloated guest list…I think I’d be singing a different tune if it was just mine and FI’s money.
Luckily we didn’t have to make cuts, for our venue or for our budget. But then we’re only having 90-100 people, so it’s not too bad. I can’t imagine the struggles those brides with huge families go through to cut the list!
We are having to be quite ruthless with our list. FMIL would like to invite every single person she has ever crossed paths with. Unfortunately, the venue we chose only will accomidate between 80 and 100 people, and FI and I are paying for the wedding ourselves. That being said, we are extending about 100 first roudn invites, not inviting singles with guests and not inviting co-workers unless they are also ‘out of work friends’. i feel heartless, but weddings are supposed to be intimite gatherings! in my opinion.
We picked the venue based on the number of people we are inviting. Our first choice could only hold 75 people max, and so we chose to go elsewhere. At the end of the day, the party and the people that make it are what matter to us, so we are cutting corners elswhere by begging, borrowing and bartering where we can.
The nice thing about our venue, there is not guest limit & I don’t have to share the space with another bride. They have different ways to set up the floor depending on the amount of guests too to make it look full.
I think the use of the word “ruthless” is probably the result of a lot of brides and grooms feeling like their guest list gets hi-jacked by parents and the feelings of other important family members….maybe ruthless is too dramatic and hyperbolic a word, but firmess about your boundaries around the guest list can be very important to people for all kinds of reasons. And for many, that isn’t correlated to satisfying costly visions from Martha. The guest list has the biggest impact on the mood and feeling of your day, so I’m not surprised that it’s usually a tough topic!
Only the closest ppl! People who haven’t really bothered to keep in touch in the last year most likely go the chop. Thankfully my parents aren’t like some overbearing parents I’ve heard about — since the FI and I are paying, we get the say!
The other issue with this is the word “minimum”. I have been hearing this for so long and I would rather it be taken out of the wedding world entirely. I understand that everyone needs to make money and ultimately brides need to spend money, but come on people! “In this economy” we shouldn’t have “minimums”. I was trying to tell venues that I will not have over 50 people; they gasped. Oh the horror…I had a few places tell me that they would lower the “minimum” to 50. One catch: My final bill would be for 50 people whether I had 50 or not. “Ruthless” may be a little harsh but sometimes tough love triumphs.
We were actually turned away from venues because we didn’t have enough people. We’re inviting about 50 people and that’s thinking of every family member and friend we’ve seen in the last year. I have a really small family and my fiance has none besides his parents and brother, so it’s been this sad little exercise of “who else do we know?”
Everyone has different situations - a small wedding doesn’t mean I uninvited grandma.
Thank you, this post has actually reminded me to get my FI to REALLY do his list. But Our venue gave us our numbers and we I dont see it as a bad thing because we know too many people. I see it as a challenge and I feel like those people who claim to really love us and understand us wont be mad if they dont come hopefully they will understand.
I’m with Mrs. Smith. I am in NYC and the costs are totally out of hand (and our wedding is super DIY). But no matter what, it is $150 a head (in Queens, not Manhattan) so we have to be ruthless. I am with you, Miss Lamb, in my distaste for the word though.
i made things work with our guest list for the most part. =But I even had a hard time not inviting my mother’s cousin’s children!
Wow. Amen to that. My fiance and I considered postponing our wedding because we wouldn’t have the money to invite everyone we wanted to be there (which was everyone). When I presented this to my Mom she pointed out that money was a really crappy reason not to get married. A wedding doesn’t have to be about vendors and themes and showing off. We are now taking inspiration from a few down home, DIY weddings like abackyardwedding.blogspot.com and others. But it’s such a relief to hear other brides thinking this way.
I came up with the same rule, except that mine was “no one that me *or my fiance* doesn’t recognize without having to be reminded who they are.” Even with the three years+ that we’ve been together, I recognize that there are people who are important to him that I might not have met yet, such as one grandparent and some aunts/uncles etc. I certainly wouldn’t want my fiance saying that no one is invited whom HE doesn’t recognize, since I know I’m also guilty of having failed to introduce him to one or two dear old friends of mine and some relatives. But in general, yes, I feel this rule helps to clarify with both sets of parents that they aren’t throwing a party for themselves in which it’s okay for them to invite all kinds of people who don’t know the bride and groom. A wedding isn’t just a fun party, it’s a wedding for goodness sake; people who attend should be there to bear witness to the public unification of two people in lifelong commitment. Not because their coworker is paying the bar tab.
(I got very lucky on my guest list - it looks like all the people likely to attend are people we know and love, and there still won’t be more than 50 some mouths to feed. Perfect size.)
I should add, though, we did have to have a bit of a discussion about people from his side, and I told my mother that I didn’t want anyone there from my fiance’s side whom he “couldn’t pick out of a lineup.” My mom laughed at that a lot.
The most ruthless I have felt is when I requested my fiance cut a couple friends on his list that he has not seen or spoken to in a couple years. We can only have 100 people at our venue, without paying extra. I am pretty sure we are going to be under 100 though because we wanted a smaller more intimate wedding. We wanted to be able to speak to every guest and still have time to eat and dance at the reception
I think that cutting people from my guestlist honestly doesn’t cut my radar as a possibility. I will not, however, stand for my parents telling me people I MUST invite. Forget that.
There are many reasons that we chose to reduce our guest list, but I do not see it as being an “aggressive” ruthlessness. First, I want to be able to spend quality time with each and every person during our wedding and wedding weekend activities. All of our guests are from out of town, so I also feel like many of those who we did not choose to invite would not have been able to afford the costs of flying here, renting a car, buying a gift and staying in a hotel. My fiance is Indian (I am not), and so it really came down to, do you want a wedding of 50 guests or a wedding of 400 guests? There is really no in between for his family, so we chose 50 and I am loving the idea of being surrounded by those I love most in this world.
Our guest list is balanced, but we just need overall less numbers. It’s not looking good.
i’m with DesignerBee on this. i gotta know (and care about) the people who get to spend that SPECIAL DAY with us.
We knew that we wanted to keep the wedding on the small side, so we deliberately chose a venue with a maximum cap of 120. I knew it would be an uphill battle with my ILs (because my MIL wanted to invite everyone!), and since we were paying, we wanted to limit ourselves to a smaller guest list. We ended up only having 86 guests, which was actually ideal.
Guest list!!!! Yes, I dread it. I originally wanted 100 then it grew to 120. We are now at 150 but it’s still growing. Oh well, I am hoping we invite 160 and 130 will rsvp yes. Is that feasible? I hope so.
I think it depends on what you want to do for your nearest and dearest. I really wish I could invite my whole family…and with Hawaiians, that includes my mother’s cousin’s stepkids’ kid (seriously, when I come home to Hawaii for Christmas, that kid is there & runs to hug me). But we also wanted to make our wedding an event to remember, a kind of “thank you” to all the people who support us in our relationship. So, our “unnecessary splurge” is our favors: tix to Disneyland…to others, that may be over the top. To us, it’s not enough of a thank you. And neither of us wanted to give anything smaller just to include more people - we want to give them all the joy we feel & nothing less. If we could afford more than 60 tix to Disneyland, we’d invite more of our truly loved & dear family and friends…but we can’t. Instead, we’re saving up between our wedding & the Christmas after in order to throw a Hawaii celebration for all our loved ones we couldn’t invite.
In order to truly thank our loved ones the way we want to, we had to be “ruthless”. It’s not easy, but I don’t regret that we’re “splurging” on the “thank you” part of our wedding.
Our venue boasts that it can hold 180, but internet research has told me that 140 is pushing it; it’s an odd shape and I can see it getting crowded in there. That said, we’re at 139 right now. If single friends/relatives couple up, that could push it even higher. Eek!
We had to be ruthless in cutting our guest list. My grandparents weren’t there. One set of my husband’s parents weren’t there, and his brothers. And in several ways that was cruel, both to those who were left out and to us.
But we wanted a small, intimate ceremony, and that’s what we got. Fifteen guests. Sometimes I do feel a little badly that we didn’t include everyone, but ultimately a giant 200-guest wedding was not what we wanted, regardless of whose feelings we hurt. My grandparents would probably call that selfish, but it certainly wasn’t a heartless decision.
Once again you’re making an interesting point while being incredibly harsh in your wording… something to think about.
@Jo: I just want to clarify that I’m not saying you have to have a big wedding to avoid being ruthless. I’m making the point that there are some interesting pressures from the wedding industry to buy more “stuff” and cut out people. I don’t think there’s anything harsh in critiquing Martha’s article or the pressures of the industry.
I wish we would have been “ruthless” with our guest list. I still would have DIYed everything, but we might have been able to afford a nicer dinner and had more time with the people closest to us. Instead, I felt like I didn’t really get to talk to anyone at our wedding because I was so busy trying to simply say “hi” to our 175 guests. If I could do it over again, I would have 50 of our closest friends and family at a nice restaurant with candle light and good conversation.
Having a destination wedding played a big role in determining our guest list and final guest count!
Having everyone we loved there was our biggest priority so we eliminated other budget-busters…. like the all night open bar. I know, I know.. that’s also frowned upon, but we figure half of the night so that we can invite the entire family is worth it to us.
Oh, I understood that was the point of the post. Obviously there are a lot of pressures that brides need to watch out for, especially where the industry deems something “necessary.”
Mostly that’s actually why I’m finding it difficult to read some of your posts, because you’re making relevant, important points… there’s just something about the tone that’s putting me off. Maybe I’m the only one. I read an implication here that cutting anyone from the guest list means you’re caving to some pressure, whether that’s the wedding industry or your parents or your budget, which is not always the case.
I’m relieved to know that’s not what you intended, but since this isn’t the first post where your tone has clouded your point, I’d encourage you to think about that when making future posts.
I suck at being ruthless. My guestlist has exploded, and I keep wanting to add more people. But I’m totally a “the more the merrier!” type. But I’m sure we’ll get plenty of “no’s”. Or so I hope…. eh. It will work out.
My parents are inviting a lot, his aren’t, and we don’t have too many friends so I think our numbers will work out just fine :).
Very well said, Lamb. I couldn’t agree with you more. A wedding is about celebrating your marriage with the people you love. big or small. There’s nothing ruthless about that.
Our families are simply too large for us to be ruthless. We couldn’t not invite our family members, it seemed incredibly wrong. But with a big family also comes an army of helpers.
Since I have a small family and few close friends, it was easy for us to accommodate the fiance’s rather large family and many friends - we’ve mostly limited it based on the size of our venue. Though I am still trying to talk him into cutting the friends of his whom I’ve never met. I mean, seriously - we’ve been together almost 3 years. If I haven’t even met them, how important can they be?!? LOL
i still regret not inviting a few people to our wedding. we cut the list because of budget, but if we REALLY wanted to we could have squeezed them in last minute. in the end we left it the way things were and i still feel terrible that we didnt let some bring dates, etc. guest list is the toughest part of wedding planning, i think!
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Miss Lamb, Norfolk
Age and Occupation: 25, Homeland Security Consultant
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Graduate Student
Engagement Date: January 2009
Wedding Date: January 2010
Venue: Trinity Presbyterian Church/Harrison Opera House
About Me: I’m a Homeland Security Consultant with a tendency towards pulling office pranks, taking lunch breaks, and drinking Wawa shakes. I’m also an English major with a serious obsession with alliteration and rhymes. While I’m not keeping America safe, I’m training for half marathons and the Escape from Alcatraz swim. Or moving for the third time this year. Or baking. Or wedding crafting. Or crying about wedding planning. All the while, I’m getting myself into Lucille Ball-esque scrapes and making Jim Carey-esque faces. Our big fat Czech/Baptist/Jewish/Italian wedding is a combination of vintage eclectic, DIY, and little spoonful of sugar from our Event Coordinator. It’s going to be a Norfolk flavored wedding with the verve of an only-daughter-blow-out bash!
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