Destination wedding guest question

Never invite more than capacity allows and always assume you will have 100% attendance. You have to factor vendors into the building capacity as well. Does the state allow that many at an event during the pandemic?


Invite those who are most important to you. For some people, relatives take priority over and friends, while for others, friends are much closer than family. Do not invite anyone out obligation. If your fiance wants to share the day with his gamer friends, it's ok to cut an extended aunt/uncle group or parents' coworkers whom you are not close to at all.

View Quoted Comment We aren’t getting married until summer 2022 so we shouldn’t have any pandemic limitation issues. I asked our venue if vendors were counted toward our max and they do not since they aren’t having a seat for the sit down dinner. I guess we may have to take a look at the guest list again and see if we can cut more people cuz it seems like he really wants to invite them!

I agree with PP about not inviting more than you accommodate. Also, even if people tell you they can’t make it when save the dates go out, they should still receive an invitation. Plans change.

View Quoted Comment Very true. We are trying to look at the guest list again and seeing who we can cut out of obligation so we can fit them in initially

View Quoted Comment Go down your list and ask yourselves if it will make or break the event if they attend vs not. Anyone you don't care about or who is only there to please others gets an automatic cut.

We did not do Save the Dates, we did it the way they did before Saves were ( recently) invented, and called people we wanted to give advance notice. We had our wedding at a location between 3 large groupings of family, so none except overseas people would have to fly, instead of 70 or so whichever home. So we treated it like a destination wedding. On the phone, you get feedback. We did not ask will you won't you. We did say that with so many owning small businesses, we knew coverage, kids, and the fact that it was a 3 day weekend would make it difficult for some. This was at 4 months out ( 5 month engagement.) Since it was fairly close, by the end of the call quite a few had said, let me look at the calendar. So we had a definite yes, definite know, and maybe list of 5. We dod not send invitations to any of the 15 households (1-3 each) who said no, and did send 10 people from our cut list invitations. Having only 5 on the maybe list from the beginning, and knowing to plan for 170-175 plus WP by 3.5 months out was a big help, in blocking rooms .

I agree on not inviting more than capacity allows. We are having a destination wedding and assumed a lot of people would likely decline rather than travel, so we had planned to invite everyone (assuming we’d have a windfall of declines). Thankfully I saw here on WW people suggesting to others that it was a bad idea. Sooooo glad we didn’t now because after we sent out STDs (to only our “must have” guests) every single person text us that they had received the STD and were excited to attend! If we had invited everyone like we originally planned to, we would probably have a real problem on our hands

View Quoted Comment I like the sentiment and my FH said he loves this and will call his family members he thinks will be maybes closer to the wedding but my family is different. We just didn’t grow up close to everyone and since my mom passed away (almost 9 years ago), hardly any of them have contact with us so I feel so much obligation to invite them but since I’m not close to them it makes me want to cut them off the list :/

View Quoted Comment Oh wow!! Glad it worked out for you!! Yeah after reading all the comments from people about not inviting more than the max, we’re taking it more serious to try and cut the list down more. It’s hard with us both having larger families! Didn’t realize how stressful it would be!

View Quoted Comment Ah yes the tried and true way to cut the list down. I’m really gonna have to go through and do this! Thank you for this advice! I feel like I always read it places but it feels like it’s more real hearing it from others!

View Quoted Comment I agree with this. Assume all will show up.

View Quoted Comment It really is!! I have a HUGE family (over 150 aunts, uncles & cousins just in my family alone), so I’ve had to make some serious cuts to the guest list. We’ve decided to just invite parents, siblings, wedding party and closest friends to the destination wedding, then have a local reception for everyone later.

View Quoted Comment Girl yes!! My list alone had over 200 and my FH had 100 and our venue max is 120! The first cuts were easy cuz they were very extended family from my parents address book and I didn’t know them so that was easy. It gets harder when you get closer to second cousins you went to family reunions together when you were 10 but nothing since and others you feel obligated to invite. We’ve got it down to about 125-132 depending if he invited his gamer friends and if we want to risk the slight overage. We still have time to figure out before we actually send the save the dates and don’t even get me started on when I have to tell my dad and aunt who’s NOT invited. That’ll be fun 🤪

View Quoted Comment The struggle is so real!

Totally 💯% agree with everyone! Can’t invite more than the capacity & hope some will decline. I have a large family (his side not so much) plus he’s a firefighter so we have a fire family too, including our friends & extended family, we would easily clear 250+. That’s something we didn’t want or afford. We made some cuts, then cut some more & still had to cut more. We got it down to 90 guests.

View Quoted Comment I agree I’m hoping we can make a few more cuts by the time we need to send out save the dates. We decided to do just one list instead of the A/B thing. Just too complicated with the destination wedding. There’s a few people on the list I could probably cut but I feel bad about it. My aunt wants to do a local reception for those who can’t come and the ones we can’t invite (she doesn’t know I’m not inviting her cousins yet) but I feel like that brings on more stress cuz we can’t invite them to the wedding!

View Quoted Comment Though standard etiquette is that if anyone tells you they definately cannot make it, and not to send an invitation, you should not. Because when people tell you things you should respect them, and that they know their own mind. And that it is rude / and pushy to send an invitation when clearly told , we will not come, as though you are ignoring them and what they have clearly said, for your greater wisdom.

View Quoted Comment Do you think we should reach out to them personally when it comes time to send invites to double check with them? In case their plans changed? Something like “ hey I know you said you were not able to come. We were getting ready to send out the invitations, and just wanted to check in with you to see if that was still the case! Didn’t want you to feel left out if your plans had changed!” I also don’t want to make anyone feel pressured or feel bad for not being able to go!

View Quoted Comment If you still have seats, sure. And when they first say no, for those whom you really feel it, also say, if anything changes, let us know, you are always welcome. But to begin with, you need to respect what they have said. In truth, sometimes most of has some we miss, and some we say, one less to pay for.

View Quoted Comment Ok thanks so much for the advice Judith! I really appreciate it!