Dear Bees,
I have a confession to make—We not only have an A guest list, but also a B list, and maybe, possibly a C list.
I know some of you must be absolutely horrified at that notion, but hear me out. I think it’s the most realistic way of creating a guest list. Let’s be honest, even if you only have one list, there are different categories of guests:
1) Family Members: immediate, extended, and remind-me-how-we’re-related-again extended family.
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2) Your friends: the close ones, the ones you wish were closer, the ones who were close but have moved away and you haven’t spoken to in years.
3) Your courtesy invites: like your boss, those coworkers you’ve worked with for five years but you don’t really know anything about, and those neighbors that your parents insist you “have” to invite, but “they won’t come anyways.”
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When you boil down to it, there is a reason each person was invited to your special day, but the reasons are not always the same, and some reasons are just better than others.
I guess what I’m trying to say here is, life is messy, relationships are messy. We do not have equal relationships with everyone on our guest list, thus, why does it make sense for us to have only one guest list, especially when your guest list is spiraling out of control?
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In an ideal world, you might book a venue that could hold every single person. However, due to budget, venue size limitations, and the acceptable wish to not have 500 people at your wedding, I think it is perfectly reasonable to be more selective with who you invite.
Thus we have our:
A: absolutely have-to-invite without a question
B: want to invite
C: probably should invite?
We currently have 82 people on our list, 56 As, 26 Bs, and 0 Cs. Clearly, we’re not utilizing our C list effectively, but I’m sure that total and distribution will change as we get closer to inviting people.
Our venue can only hold 60 people. I really don’t want to invite 80 people and pray that 20 of them will say no (25%). What if they all accept?
We would absolutely love to share our day with everyone, but realistically we just can’t. I hope our B list doesn’t get offended, but I like to think if they’re being honest with themselves, they should know they’re our B list.
That being said, my goal is to make the transition between A and B list as smooth as possible. We plan on sending out our A list invitations very very very early (like 3-4 months out early). Hopefully, we will get enough responses that I can feel comfortable about sending our B list invitations at about two months out. Considering two months is fairly standard for invitations, that should be enough time for our B list to respond, and not feel like they were unwanted.
I’m sure most people have some sort of A/B list, even if they didn’t directly come out and say it. I like to think that those who get offended are those who were guests of brides and grooms that didn’t handle the situation with the most tact, but maybe that’s not true.
How do we take care of our guest list the most graciously so that everyone feels wanted and loved? Did anyone else do an A/B/C list and have any recommendations for how to do this successfully and offending the least number of people?
We have a B-list, and I am shameless about it. We have the opposite problem though, we have a minimum number of people to make, or else we are paying for empty seats. I have totally told people that they might be invited up to the day before if we can… granted these are people who are not expecting to be invited, and would be glad to fill a seat and celebrate with us, none the less! No shame in the B-list (or C-list!)
I was once on a B-list. I got the invitation 3 weeks before the (local) wedding, so I knew I had to be B-list. But I wasn’t offended at all and had a great time at the wedding. I think most people are rational and understand that weddings come with limitations, be they financial or venue requirements.
@Miss Lyre: I had a friend who invited a ton of people the week before her wedding in order to hit the minimum. Those folks didn’t seem offended at all and appeared to have an awesome time. In fact, I’d say that wedding might have had the most fun reception I have ever been to!
The “B-List” concept has been around for eons, I certainly used it at my first Wedding (circa 1980). And I know that Professional Party Planners utilize it for major events as well… the trick is most certainly in the execution.
As you’ve discovered the primary element is sending out the A-List Invites nice and early. Giving enough time to send out the B-List Invites with appropriate lead-time for the RSVP Date you’ll have printed on the Invites.
The other important trick is to not over invite from the B-List (aka “juggling the Invites”)
The best way to do this is, as the Regrets come in from the A-Listers, send out half as many Invites. So if in week one you get back 12 Regrets (ie 6 Couples) then send out invites to 6 people from the B-List (or 3 Couples). In this way, you can be both getting in replies, and sending out Invites at the same time (so keeping the list moving along)… as well as taking into account that although unlikely, it is possible that some NOs from your A-List could turn into YESes before the Wedding (you’ve allowed yourself a 50% cushion for wiggle-room just in case)
By the time you get to your 2 month deadline, you’ll then have to make a final decision… on what is your total outstanding RSVPs from the A-List, and how many are left on your B-List. That tends to be the tough part.
Thankfully though, if you find yourself nearing the end and still have room for a few more Guests, know that it is etiquettely OK to extend “verbal invites” (followed up with the printed Invite) to folks who kind of weren’t expected to be invited… like Co-Workers, Neighbours etc. Perfectly fine as long as you don’t give them less than 2 weeks notice (and 4 is better).
Hope this helps, note the only difficult bit any Party Planner will tell you is keeping track of “all the balls you have in the air” at once. So you’ll have to be extremely vigilant with your Lists / Note Taking.
We have A and B lists, but we manage them different, not using RSVPs we can’t know for sure who is and isn’t coming, but we have a list of people we’re inviting and a second list of people we think are coming. Eg. the cousin who doesn’t like me and is OOT, and I’m almost sure she won’t come, or the uncles who already told us will be working and won’t be able to make it.
we have an A list and then like…a B+ list of like 5-10 people. like you we’re doing a small wedding and i’m planning to extend those few invites just a wee bit later after i get some declines in the mail.
Like Miss Gray Wolf, we had a small B list. Our venue could hold way more people than our max guest list, so all of the invites were sent at the same time. Once we started getting some “no” replies, we extended an invitation to a few more friends.
I think there’s no shame in the B (or C) lists. Most people understand that weddings are full of limitations, changes, and expectations, many of which are out of the couples’ hands.
We did this with success. A round invites went out 13 weeks before the wedding, b round 7, and I had two different response cards made up with different RSVP dates. We also invited a few people by phone and invitation about four weeks out, and they were understanding, pleased to be included, and were fabulous guests.
Glad to see this post. We totally have an A and B list. Our restaurant venue can also only accomodate 60 people and it really would be better to have 50-55 max. Plus we have to remember to count ourselves and our 2 photogs in the head count. So, we have the B list of co-workers and not-so-close friends that will get invites once we get some declines in the mail.
@Miss Lyre: @estella: it’s always good to see people who have gotten really late invitations and haven’t been offended–there seems to be a lot of people who are offended on the boards
@This Time Round: thanks for the tips! That makes so much sense. I’m glad to hear how people in the biz do it.
@Miss Toadstool: that sounds like a smart way of doing it! I guess I have no idea who in my invite list will come versus who won’t–I’ve already gotten surprised by my relatives in China coming–I assumed they wouldn’t bother, and didn’t even put them on my original list. yikes
@Mrs. Archer: you are so organized, I think I will do that too…
@BelleFille: good call, I don’t know if I include my photograher… need to go check that
@This Time Round: fabulous idea with the cushion room! i never thought about that… thanks 
I don’t think this is rude! I think its practical! My fiance and I had something similar but we called it primary guests, secondary guests and tertiary guests! We ended up cutting a lot of tertiary guests off and didn’t really categorise them in our heads except we knew everyone on the primary list would say yes to coming!
@Miss Panda: @Miss Panda: @Miss Panda: The timing of your post is awesome. Thank you.
We have an A, B, C & maybe, that dreadful, D List! Unlike some I see here who are worried about reaching the limit, my concern is going over the limit.
@This Time Round: I love your idea of replacing regrets with invites for that number of seats. I’ll definitely implement that.
@Mrs. Archer: Another great idea of tearing the invites.
Thanks Bees!
WOW I HOPE YOU GUYS CAN HAVE MY BACK ON MY POST ON THE KNOT CAUSE PPL ARE RIPPING ME A NEW ONE !!! AND ITS ANNOYING …. IT ALL STARTED CAUSE I WAS ASKING IF THERE WAS A WAY TO WORD FORMAL ATTIRE ON THE INVITE
HELP ! LOL
So glad to see this because I am having a serious issue with my guest list. I just CANNOT cut it down to the max number of guests! About half of the guests will be traveling from out of town, and at this point many folks are telling me they plan on coming (I blame this on my age and people wanting to witness my FINALLY getting married). My fiance is being stingy with his list and won’t give me some of his slots until mine have declined.
All this to say, my B and C lists are REALLY long. Fiance and I are doing what @Miss Panda is doing and sending out A list REALLY early. Like 5 months. I’m hoping it all magically works out. Good luck to everyone!
Beware of the last minute, do you care if I bring so and so, I know I didn’t RSVP for 2 but can I bring my new girlfriend, and the last minute cancellations, we had at least 12 people not make it that RSVP’d yes. We invited 125 or so and ended up with about 50-60.
I’m right there with you. My dilemma is multi-layered, and we have A, B, and C lists as well. The first issue is that our venue requires us to have a minimum of 200 and a max of 250 — no biggie. But my fiance and I really want to keep it as close to 200 as possible, primarily for budgeting reasons — still not an issue, that leaves for quite a hefty guest list. Except for the fact that family is huge. Without kids being invited (which is an entirely different and touchy subject with our mothers), my family alone (immediate family, aunts, uncles and first cousins) is about 115 people. Add in the fact that the wedding will be about 6 hours away from where most of them live, and it leaves me with no honest clue of how many of them will make the trip. My fiance is a firefighter, and we would love to invite the entire department but it doesn’t look like an option. And I would like to invite quite a few of my friends as well. So he and I decided (we simply had to cut our parents out of this process) that we had to divide our list of 250 into categories. The A-list will include all of our family and closest friends only. B-list is the next tier of remaining firefighters and closeish friends. And finally, the C-list is going to be the rest of the fire department and those friends and neighbors that we’re not as close with, but would love to party with us. The C-list is really pretty small, but we wanted it just in case we get a lot of regrets from my family.
Wow! Miss Panda hit the nail on the head. What a great post. I really like how you are trying to be considerate of everyone. Of course, we all know that it’s impossible to please everyone, when it comes to wedding guest lists, but there are some helpful ideas in these posts.
When my daughter got married a few months ago, she left most of the details up to me because she knew I could envision her dream wedding. The groom and his Mom met with us initially to discuss the guest list and we agreed to limit it to 100. The groom’s parents had offered to pay for the reception dinner up to a certain dollar amount, but they didn’t really have a lot of people to invite. The members of the bridal party were mostly friends from our church and we naturally included their parents. My daughter said it worked out great that the parents of her friends were also the friends of her parents–no real surprise! The one thing I would like to have done differently is to go with my heart and invite some of my extended family, even if it meant paying a little extra above what the groom’s parents were paying. As it turned out, the number of no-shows on the wedding day (who didn’t let us know ahead of time) would have been about the same as the number of aunts and uncles I wanted to invite. Since I organized the set-up of the tables for the reception, I knew there were extra places allowed so that no one had to sit next to a stranger. We had enough extra of everything, but I just wasn’t sure if my aunts and uncles would be offended at being invited at the last minute and feel like we were only trying to get a lot of wedding gifts for our daughter. Oh, well. The bride and groom had a fabulous time and I think everyone else really enjoyed the day, too. My advice would be to just do your best to make it a memorable time for everyone involved.
@Jacofblues: my big fear right now is that everyone in our A list is going to say yes and I’m not going to be able to invite anyone off of the B list. PBear doesn’t think that that’s likely, but honestly… I’m not really sure who in the list wouldn’t come? If I had any inkling of people saying no, maybe I wouldn’t worry so much about it.
@CYNTHIA CHAVIRA: yikes. I’m not sure I can say anything in that post that would improve the situation. =/ Just remember, not everyone will like your decisions, but you need to make the decisions that are right for you.
@MissEC: Yup, I am hoping this all magically works itself out too. I really, really hate to upset people, but I’m not sure there is a way out of it now.
@amy: ugh, the last minute invites, last minute nos are going to be the death of me. I’m not very good with uncertainty and things I can’t control. I will keep that in mind though, thanks!
@Hannahmn88: Wow, that’s a lot of people to keep up with! I can’t imagine! My concern is similar. Because most people have to travel, I really have no idea who may or may not be able to make the trip. Honestly, I would send my invites out now, if I thought people would actually rsvp this early.
@cookecutter51: thank you for the kind comments. I’m glad you got a chance to invite some of your friends to share in her day even if you didn’t get a chance to invite some of your extended family! It sounds like a very memorable day. I hope that I can create as memorable of a day for my friends and family!
Miss Panda, Boston, MA Age and Occupation: 26, Graduate Student Fiance's Age and Occupation: 23, Graduate Student Engagement Date: June 27, 2011 Wedding Date: June 2013 About Me: I love window shopping, cute animals, crafting, baking, and most forms of procrastination. I tend to be overly meticulous with choices to a point of complete and total indecision. Mr. PBear and I met and live in the amazing city of Boston. We are big nerds who love trying new foods, playing video games, and cuddling with our adorable hamster. After 5 years together, we are planning an intimate, DIY-heavy, vintage garden themed, nonreligious wedding in the city where we fell in love.
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