How Many People Should I Invite to My Wedding?

Your wedding guest list, the table plan and your wedding invitations can be some of the most stressful elements of planning a wedding. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be this way. In fact, you’ll probably become pretty familiar with making tough decisions through your wedding planning journey, but to help you get started, we’re delving into your wedding guest list. Here, we’ll be touching on wedding etiquette, wedding sizes and working out how many guests you ultimately need to send an invitation to. But let’s start with a caveat: there is actually no right or wrong answer here. Whilst the general rule and average size of a wedding guest list is 100 to 120, some couples will choose to have a big wedding, set over multiple days, with hundreds of wedding guests. Whereas others are intimate, personal gatherings with only a handful of guests. And some wedding couples have no guests at all, choosing to sneak off for a super romantic elopement, just the two of them. None of which are any more beautiful, magical, and sentimental than the other!

So, while you can basically invite as many guests as you like to your big day, the following factors are there to aid your planning process, which may also help determine the wedding size/guest lists you should invite to your wedding and how many might actually come.

How many people to invite

Before you start and to avoid booking anything that ultimately you might regret later, it’s a good idea to have a preliminary list of the number of guests you might like to send an invitation to. Now is the perfect time to decide whether you want to invite children. Are you allowing plus ones, and do you have guests located abroad who might have to travel far? Keep this number in mind when you start searching for your venue/wedding planner and progressing with your wedding planning. This number may fluctuate, that’s totally natural, but it’s good to start somewhere.

How many guests can your wedding budget afford?

We probably don’t need to explain that the more wedding guests you have, the more expensive your wedding is going to be, especially if you have a destination wedding. Your wedding budget is going to be a huge determining factor over many things related to your wedding, including how many people to invite. If you invite more people, you will naturally need a bigger space, you will have more mouths to feed and water, and additional details to order, such as wedding invitations, favours, furniture, confetti, etc.

One way to save on your wedding budget is to invite just your closest friends and immediate family to the wedding ceremony and send a separate invitation to other guests for the evening wedding reception. That way, you're getting the best of both: an intimate wedding ceremony with your wedding party and then a fun wedding party for all to celebrate later in the day!

Consider the overall vibe you want for the day

Think about the different weddings you've been to before. Isn't the atmosphere at huge weddings really different from that of an intimate or micro wedding? If you're all about the little details and personalised touches, it may be worth reducing the number of guests to make the day your own. Once you've nailed the vibe, the rest should fall into place, and you can tailor your venue search to match how many guests you want.

How many people does your venue hold?

Another big consideration when deciding how many people to invite to your wedding is the venue capacity. If your dream venue can only accommodate up to 80 guests, then that’s basically your limit. Alternatively, if you’ve always fancied a beautiful barn wedding, are your family members and 50 invited guests going to get lost in such a big open space? Speak to your venue about how many guests you want to host, as they will advise you on the ideal capacity of their various rooms and event spaces.

How many people will come to your wedding?

Somewhere between 70% and 85% of your guest list will actually attend your wedding day, so if you send a wedding invite to 100 guests, 70 to 85 will turn up. If you have booked a package with your wedding venue covering 100 guests, you might want to increase your guest count by adding a few more guests to your list, knowing that a handful won’t attend. Obviously, this is risky, so we’d suggest approaching this with caution, but it’s certainly something to consider.

Who are the most important people to invite to your wedding?

Finally, you might want to draft up your wedding guest list in sections. Start by having an honest conversation with your future spouse and listing everyone you can’t imagine getting married without (your A list). Then move on to who it would be nice to invite to your wedding but who isn’t strictly necessary (a colleague, an old friend or family members of a certain age, for example, your B list) and finally, who you must invite, no compromise! This last one will vary. In fact, you may not have a guest count for this list. But if your families are contributing to your wedding, they might want to invite their close friends and a family member or two too. Start with your immediate family, extended family, distant relatives and second cousins before moving on to your parents’ friends, co-workers, and other extra guests you might think of.

Who gets the final say when it comes to the guest list?

Sadly, there's no right or wrong answer here. Yes, it's your wedding, but wedding etiquette states that a family member has the right to voice their views if they are making a financial contribution. But if they're only helping out with a small part of the wedding (like the catering or your dress, for example), then they should only have an opinion on those particular elements when it comes to making decisions. But that's easier said than done, right?!

Everyone will ultimately have an opinion (about almost anything - sorry!), but you and your spouse-to-be will be the ones who look back and worry about who was and wasn't there. Whilst we don’t have the perfect answer, we hope this article and the few factors listed have helped you plan the first round of your wedding guest list. You want your wedding day to be a beautiful, memorable celebration where you are surrounded by all of your favourite people and the ones who will wish you the best in your future together.