Wedding Forum - Help on deciding who to invite :)...

I thought this article in a magazine i get was quite useful for deciding on who to invite

Size matters
- Before you get carried away and invite everyone you know, decide what size of wedding you want; a small celebration where you can afford to spoil people, or a huge bash with as many guests as possible.
- Sit down together and do a head count of family and friends to check your numbers are roughly in line with the day you have in mind.

Divide and conquer
- Etiquette dictates that you and your groom should have an equal allocation of guests. Only if you can't reach your set quota should it be weighted to the other's favour. So 150 guests means you get to choose 75 people each. If he only comes up with 60 names you get an extra 15. Bonus!

Ask the parents
- Traditionally, the bride's parents paid for the wedding and had the upper hand when it came to compiling the guest list. However, these days it's more likely you'll be splitting the bill between yourselves and both sets of parents, which means they also have a say in who they invite.
- Ask them to give you a list and prepare for tense negotiations when you find that they've jotted down the names of everyone in their bridge club. It is within your rights to veto some people from their list, but be sensitive!

Decide on the A-list
- Once you've found the venue, you'll know the exact numbers you're working with. If your list adds up to more than you can accommodate, now is the time to prioritise.
- The best way is to split this list in two – those you must invite (the A-list) and those who aren't essential (the B-list). Generally, all those on the A-list will be invited to both the ceremony and reception, while the B-list will only be invited to attend in the evening.

Set your criteria
- When deciding who goes on which list, you should agree on certain rules. For example, anyone neither of you has seen nor spoke to in six months should definitely go on the B-list.
- You should also decide which of your unmarried friends get plus-ones – if you're tight on numbers, you don't have to invite any partners you haven't met or who have been with your friend for less than year.


Over-invite
- Between 10% and 20% of guests will be unable to attend, which means you can risk extending invites to more peole than your venue can accommodate.
- Send out the A-list invites first, then if more people decline than you anticipate, you can invite those at the top of the B-list to join you for the entire day.

Work it out
- If you're planning to invite some work colleagues and not others, you risk putting noses out of joint. An all-or-nothing approach is best unless there are some you regularly socialise with outside office hours.
- Whatever you decide, it's always considered good etiquette to invite the boss.

Be clear on kids
- You're perfectly at liberty to veto having children at your wedding, but chances are you'll want to include a select few to join in the fun.
- To avoid anyone assuming their children get to come, it's best to explain in person that while you would love to invite their offspring, numbers are limited. The chance to let their hair down will mean they'll soon forget about any initial upset.

I had a major discussion with my OH last night about the guest list, my familiy is way bigger than his, and even though I haven't spoken to a lot of them in ages, I'd like to invite some of them to try keeping in contact. But then I end up with abut 40guests, and he has like 20 :S and he wants to keep the number around 50. So now I have no idea what to do about it...

If I cut the aunts and uncles I haven't spoken to in ages, but invite their kids, and other aunts and uncles...aaaawkwaaard!

We're asking people to travel all the way from Norway to England so I don't feel it's right not inviting them to the whole thing then :/ also we're having it all in one place, a hotel, and everyone will be staying at the hotel, so would be kinda awkward telling people to stay in their rooms while half of the shindig goes down lol

I've decided to cut the cousins, OH was kicking up too much of a fuss about it :/ the only problem now is evening out the stupid tables. No one wants anything to do with his father as he cheated on his mum and that's why they are divorced. So I've got a table of 8 with 3ppl on it, and no one who wants to sit with them -_-

I don't know, thought it might be kinda awkward if I put a 50is year old man with my OH's friends who are all in their 20's :S
He might be inviting more people from his fathers side, which I hope, cuz then I can stick them on that table. He just doesn't want to deal with the guestlist though, he just keeps saying it's two years away and he doesn't know who he's gonna invite yet -_-
Now I just have to get him to understand that no matter what, we're gonna end up at 60 guests and not 50 *le sigh*

Yeah I keep trying to tell him these things but he doesn't quite get it -_-
Yeah, all our guests will be invited to everything, it doesn't really cost us that much more anyway. Luckily Norway is richer than England like, so they wont have to save as much as if we'd done it the other way around!
My dad tried to make us have the wedding in Norway, but I wasn't about to ask OH's family to travel to one of the most expensive countries in the world!!!
I'm not worried about his friends, more about his father being stuck with a bunch of rowdy kids lol.

Thanks for that!!!