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. You’ll probably become pretty familiar with making tough decisions through your wedding planning journey so to help you get started, we’re delving into your wedding guest list, 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, 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. So, whilst 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 time to decide whether you want to invite children, are you allowing plus ones and do you have guests located abroad that 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 would be to invite just your closest friends and immediate family to the wedding ceremony and send a separate invitation to other guests for the evening reception.

How many people does your venue hold?

Another big thing to consider when deciding how many people to invite to your wedding is the wedding 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 is your family members and 50 invited guests going to get lost in such a big open space?

How many people will come to your wedding?

Somewhere between 70-85% of your guest list will actually attend your wedding day so therefore 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 which covers exactly 100 guests you might want to up your guest count by adding a few more guests to your list, knowing that a handful won’t end up attending. 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 onto who it would be nice to invite to your wedding but who aren’t strictly necessary (a colleague, an old friend or family members of a certain ago 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. 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. Ultimately though your wedding day is a special day for you and your partner so if you don’t think you’ll be a best friend to some of the invite list or wedding party in 5 years’ time, perhaps don’t send them an invitation in the first place? You want your wedding day to be a beautiful, memorable celebration where you are surrounded by all of your favourite people and the ones that will wish you the best in your future together.