How to decide who to invite?

I’m on the same boat. I’ve been using the rule of “would you spend 100 dollars on them for dinner” as a guide.

that being said there’s a few I’m still
back on forth on.

I went with if I typically send you a Christmas card.
If they weren’t important enough for me to send a card to, they definitely aren’t important enough for me to invite to one of the biggest days of my life!
The only exceptions I made to this rule was my dads aunt and cousin that he wanted to invite (they paid for half of the wedding). No other extended family that I don’t speak to was invited. He speaks to them often i guess 🤷‍♀️I have no regrets.

View Quoted Comment Besides my parents and siblings I don’t think there is anyone I’d drop $100 per person on for dinner. It was less than $25 per person for my wedding meal, cocktail hr included, and we had a delicious carved turkey meal with mashed potatoes bar (think a holiday family meal). Yum!

Another way to narrow it down is if when was the last time you talked to them?

There were some people that were on my maybe list but when I went to text them for an address I realized we hadn't spoken in years. I felt awkward about contacting them out of the blue so I didn't end up sending that text or inviting them.

This all comes down to your budget. We figured out the maximum amount of people we could afford and then worked backwards from there.

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Our dinner is a buffet, and so I don't feel like that really applies. So I'm stuck

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I think this will determine a lot, we live in Montana and all our friends and family live in Oregon so I can't use the rule "Have you seen them in last 6 months", but the have I talked to them in the last 6 months could narrow it down. I feel bad for the ones that I'm like well we were friends all through high school, and when we see each other it's like no time has passed, but I don't feel like I reach out to them when I need someone to talk to or the other way around.

I made a spreadsheet and ranked all the people we would consider, from 0-6, with 0s being immediately family, 1s being wedding party candidates (our dearest, closest friends), 2s being people we'd definitely invite and really want to be at our wedding, 3s being next closest, and so on. I included columns for "who" they were affiliated with (me or my FH) and any associated invites (significant others and +1s) so that gave us a good idea of how many people that added up to and ensured we both have fairly even representation.

I then sorted that spreadsheet by ranking and we made a cutoff where it seemed appropriate (which ended up being between the 3s and 4s), which worked out because it put us right around the number of guests we were hoping. Having those "extra" guests on our list already will be super helpful when RSVPs roll in, as we'll go down to the next on the list to fill in spots if it turns out a lot of those we invite initially are unable to attend. We have a number of friends farther down the list whom we aren't super close to, but are fun people within our social circle that we'd have zero problem with them being at our wedding if it came down to it.

Obviously this method wouldn't work for everyone, but I tend to be super organized and like spreadsheets anyway so this was perfect for us. The ranking system made it easy to figure out how big a wedding we wanted because we could look at our 0s and see they all wouldn't have been able to attend if we did an intimate destination elopement with just our family, and the look at our 0s and 1s and realize how lopsided that made it between our guests and then our 0-2s and realize that that number of people was too big to host in a backyard but not really cost effective to host if we rented a wedding venue and so on. Even if you just put all your "definites" and "maybes" on one paper and review it with your FH you might find it super helpful!

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Thank you so much, this is a great way to look at it! I am super organized and into spreadsheets and can't believe I didn't even think of using a system like this! Thank you so much!!

Although we would love to have a huge turnout, I definitely don’t want to invite all of my massive extended family here in GA. My FH comes from a very, very small family that’s spread out from SC, to OH to Puerto Rico. It’s just easier to say we’ll cap it at 50 and those we invite have to know us pretty well. No awkward moments with friends and relatives we barely know. We want it feel like Christmas morning! ❤️

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Oh gosh so glad you don't think it's crazy! We have found it to be SUPER helpful and it keeps all details organized - we have columns for contact info, known date conflicts (less important now, but helpful when we were initially deciding how big it was going to be and then looking at venues and isolating and picking a date), and more, and we will add to it as we send details to our guests and collect RSVPs, meal requests, etc. If you are organized and like spreadsheets anyway then its a great system, at least I think so!

View Quoted Comment I thought I was a weirdo for having guest list, spreadsheets, diagrams of the ceremony area and the tent for dinner. Basically I have a scrapbook of everything I need to remember with dates and probably too many notes. And don’t forget the lists I’m a list person 😅

I kind of just went with who I still talk to a lot and is in my life