How To Cut Your Wedding Guest List

Whether you’re needing to save money or just want to keep your celebration small, cutting back on how many people you invite to your wedding is often unavoidable. But it can be tricky to decide who gets cut and who stays. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself when trying to decide who to cut from your wedding guest list.

1. When was the last time you hung out with them?

Is this someone you see every week? Every month? Or has it been years since you last saw each other? If you don’t live close to each other, how often have you talked on the phone or had a FaceTime date? Sometimes relationships just fizzle out. It doesn’t mean there’s bad blood, it just means life happens and you’ve both entered new seasons without each other. Don’t feel obligated to invite someone to your wedding just because you used to be close. If you aren’t actively making time for each other, don’t invite them to your wedding. (This includes family members! Someone doesn’t automatically get an invite just because they’re a blood relation.)

2. Does spending time with them make you happy or drain you?

When you spend time with them, are you left feeling happy and fulfilled or do you feel anxious and drained? You need to be surrounded by people who make you happy and lift you up. If spending time with this person negatively affects your mental and emotional energy, don’t invite them to your wedding.

3. Have you ever met them?

This one might seem obvious: if you haven’t met them, they don’t get to come. But sometimes it’s not so black-and-white. For example, your parents might want to invite their friends and coworkers. If you have a large enough budget to accommodate these extra guests, then sure, it can be nice to let your parents have some of their friends there. But remember: on average, every person you invite adds an extra $200-$400 to your total wedding cost. And at the end of the day this is YOUR wedding. Even if your parents are paying for it, this doesn’t give them license to invite guests you don’t feel comfortable having there.

Another example is plus-ones. Tradition says that anyone who’s married, your wedding party, and any VIP guests who won’t know anyone else in attendance should all get plus-ones. But as previously stated, this is YOUR wedding, and you can nix tradition if needed…especially if you’re eloping or trying to keep your guest list super intimate.

4. Do they support you, your partner, and your marriage?

Similar to number 2, you don’t need anyone in attendance who negatively affects your mental and emotional energy. If someone is not supportive of you in general, or if they’ve been unsupportive or unwelcoming to your partner, or ESPECIALLY if they don’t think you should be getting married…don’t invite them. This can often be the most difficult one to come to terms with, especially if it’s a friend or family member you’ve previously been close to. But you should protect your energy and your partner’s energy at all costs; don’t let someone attend who’s going to make you feel nervous or self-conscious on such a happy day.

5. Will not inviting them cause a significant amount of drama?

Even after you’ve taken all these things into consideration, sometimes the easiest thing to do is grin and bear it. If having them at your wedding will cause less harm than the ramifications of NOT inviting them, it might be worth avoiding the post-wedding fallout. Just remember: if you hire a wedding planner, you can always ask them to help keep those people away from you on the day of the wedding.