It doesn’t matter when you draft your first guest list… but it will be just that; a draft. Be prepared to make change after change, amendment after amendment. I would also propose the earlier you do your guest list the more changes you’re likely to make. No, that does not mean I’m encouraging you to wait until the last minute to throw some names down; I’m just saying don’t get carried away with the moment and think carefully about who you really want there.

We found ourselves composing a mental list of our guests within hours of the proposal (whilst enjoying a Sydney sunset I might add. Just thought I’d get that in!)… Anyway, this ‘list’ was then transcribed within the next few days; it was already different. A few months later, back in the UK when the more serious planning had begun, I went to transfer the list from Oz into my Wedding Notebook (*a MUST HAVE for any bride-to-be*) only to discover it had quite simply vanished. We (begrudgingly) made a 3^rd full guest list and this formed the basis for any of the quotes I’d started to obtain – including the venue of course – not being able to fit everyone in would be a slight faux pas even at the most casual affair! During our subsequent house move, you guessed it… I found the original Oz list. Not that you’d have known; as it bared no resemblance to the list we were currently working with. 

Once we had started getting catering quotes, played around with the budget, dropped the marquee and generally went through all the normal motions, it became obvious our guest numbers weren’t achievable. Not only for financial reasons, but also due to something as basic as room size. It’s really important to me that all our guests are in the same room for the Wedding Breakfast. I can imagine some raised eyebrows at the thought of anything but, however believe me; the proposition of splitting the guests over 2 “connecting” rooms is more common than you would think. Ridiculous. 

The eternally-knowledgeable “everyone” says you should expect 10-20% of your guests to decline your expensive invitation (rude bastards) so you then have a risky choice; either inviting more people than you can seat, with the assumption some cant attend, or invite the exact amount and gamble on having empty seats on the day. If you have both day and evening guests, the other option is to invite the exact amount and then if needs be “bump” some people up from evening to full day guests to fill the gaps! 

We’re going for the first option. Risky I know but hey, planning your Wedding is extremely stressful so why not up the stakes a bit? It’s only your mental health at risk! Anyway, we really did cut the list as much as we felt we could and relying on “everyone’s” advice are under the assumption some people will, sadly, not be able to make it. This is almost justified by the fact some of our potential guests do not live in the UK, unfortunately reducing the likelihood of their attendance considerably. We will have evening guests too and gives us the opportunity to invite the same amount of people again, doubling our numbers for the “party” aspect of the day. If you are going to have both day and evening guests make sure you invite a decent amount of people to the evening do – there is nothing more awkward for evening guests than a small handful of them joining a party of 60+ who were deemed important enough to receive ‘day’ invites.  

Although we feel we now have a ‘finalised’ guest list… realistically we’re still 10 months away from our big day and 4/5 months from invitations going out, so I’m under no illusion that the list will remain in its current form… What does make me smile is the thought of people reading this (who therefore clearly know me)… are you sat there wondering if you’re invited? Are you a day guest or an evening guest? Well…. You’ll just have to wait and see…