Guest list etiquette

browneyedbazzi

We've found a venue and set a date! Yay! Now on to the hard part lol

We have already done a rough guest list of who we really want to invite - mostly family and close friends, our intention is to keep things fairly small and intimate. I know that my in-laws to be have some friends that they would like to be invited to the wedding (they were invited to the weddings of the friends' children); however I've only met the friends once, and my fiance has only seen them on a handful of occasions since he was a child and never felt close to them. There are other family friends who we see regularly and are close to who we will invite without hesitation.

I'm just wondering what the 'done' thing is - is it expected to allow the in-laws a number of places to invite people of their choice? If they want to invite people who we have no particular desire to be there is it acceptable to ask them (the in laws) to contribute to the cost of those guests attending ?

Also, how do people feel about sending out invitations in waves rather than all at once? Many of the people on my side of the list live abroad and will have to get flights and hotels etc to attend. I'm not sure how many of them will be able to make the trip and those that do will need a bit of extra time to make travel arrangements. I am tempted to send their invitations first with an early RSPV date, then once we know how many are coming we can make a final decision about the 'local' guest list and send out their invitations. Is that terribly tacky??

gettingtheresometime

I think it really depends on a number of factors - how many people would the in-laws would like to invite, how close their friendship is, are they contributing generally to the cost of the wedding and, to a lesser extent, whether you want to be a bridezilla!

As an example, when we got married - admittedly 25 years ago - both my parents and my in laws wanted to invite people who were long standing friends to the wedding. Yes we knew them but primarily they were the friends of the parents and as they were contributing to the wedding we felt that they had a right to invite a few friends.

I'm not sure about sending Invites in waves...whilst I understand the logic if I wasn't in the 1st wave I'd wonder if I had been placed on the 'reserve' list iyswim. Have you sent out save the date cards? You might be surprised that people have already decided whether they can come or not so wouldn't need to extra time for travel arrangements

browneyedbazzi

Thank you for the feedback - in our case we're paying for the wedding ourselves and haven't asked either set of parents to contribute at all (we've even got rooms for them included in the package for the wedding). It's really just the inlaws who will want people who aren't on our list invited - probably 2 couples. It doesn't sound like a lot but when all is said and done I expect the cost to us will be around £200 per couple.

I think you said what I was worried about with the invitations - people might think if they got invitations later they are 'reserves'. We haven't done save the date cards as we only decided on the date this week and it's in May so we'll just go straight to sending invites rather than a save the date now and an invite so soon afterwards.

Perhaps rather than the two waves of invites I could get in touch with the people who live abroad on a more informal basis and see if they'd like to come? That way I can get an idea of likely numbers, they can start making travel plans etc and then all the proper invites go out together?

McKneff

Why would it cost you £200 per couple. Surely you would only have the wedding breakfast to pay for and or the evening buffet per head.??

browneyedbazzi

McKneff wrote: »

Why would it cost you £200 per couple. Surely you would only have the wedding breakfast to pay for and or the evening buffet per head.??

The venue we've chosen charges on a per head basis for an all inclusive package rather than a hire price + catering costs + all your usual extras. It works out expensive per person when you think about adding a few extra guests, but because our wedding will be relatively small it is working out cheaper than doing things the other way around.

Andypandyboy

I think that for the sake of family harmony it would be £400 well spent. I think it would be unusual if neither set of parents offered a contribution though.

browneyedbazzi

My parents are on a fixed income and it's all they can do to scrape the money together for one of them to fly over for the wedding so they definitely won't be contributing to costs. We can afford what we want without help so we didn't intend to ask for anything from his parents - I'd feel odd asking them to pay for anything when my family can't.

Although we're fairly well off now, I wasn't always and it is still my nature to try to keep costs as low as I can - I don't like throwing money away, even if I can afford it.

Mojisola

browneyedbazzi wrote: »

My parents are on a fixed income and it's all they can do to scrape the money together for one of them to fly over for the wedding

If I had to chose between paying £400 for people I didn't know to come to my wedding and giving £400 to my parents so that they could both come, it would be an easy decision.

gettingtheresometime

Mojisola wrote: »

If I had to chose between paying £400 for people I didn't know to come to my wedding and giving £400 to my parents so that they could both come, it would be an easy decision.

I have to agree - parent trumps friend (even personal friend) any day of the week.

However (and this totally depends on the OP's financial circumstances) that if I could afford to get both parents over for the wedding and invite the guests (especially as it sounds as if there is a close friendship) then I would do so ....however it would be made crystal clear that this was the last of the requests I was prepared to accomodate.

Topcat1982

Is evening only an option? That would be a reasonable compromise

browneyedbazzi

Mojisola wrote: »

If I had to chose between paying £400 for people I didn't know to come to my wedding and giving £400 to my parents so that they could both come, it would be an easy decision.

I know - it'll cost about £600 to pay for a second flight and I'm hoping that is something we'll be able to do. I'm already having my mom stay at our house most of the time that she's here and covering the cost of her room at the hotel for the wedding itself to try to keep costs down for her.

My dad isn't keen on flying (he always had a fear then it was made worse when he was on the east cost of the US on business and due to fly home on 9/11 and got caught up in that nightmare) so part of me wonders if the money issue is a happy coincidence for him.