Is or has anyone done an "A" & "B" guest list?

My aunt did that with her list and that's what I'm doing with mine. FH and I went through the list with the question "will it kill you if they don't come" to break our list up. We're still in editing mode though

No A & B list.. it's pretty rude. Invite the people who are the closest to you. If you haven't talked to them in a year, no invite. If they aren't in your phone, no invite.

Nope. We sent out all the invitations at the same time. We were planning on 150. Thanks to last minute add ons from our mothers, we ended up inviting 185. Thankfully we had enough people decline. Our final number is 133. I think if you are only 17 over you won't have to do an A and B list.

Yeah, we're just inviting our nearest and dearest.... A&B lists are generally pretty rude. Like "you're not important enough to really be our first choice, but will you come as fill ins?"

Lots of couples are on a strict budget. With weddings costing what they do, only they rich can turn a blind eye to wedding expenses. What you should do is invite as many people as your venue and budget can accommodate. Do not over-invite and hope for declines to fix the problem. That is an easily avoidable disaster, and it's one you do not want to encounter.

Oh to be clear that's how we broke out list down, not planning to send late invites when people decline. Just did it to help minimize our guest list.

It depends on how big of a list you have 17 over out of 299 or 99 make a difference

The tricky thing is that you don't necessarily get the decline RSVPs. I sent my invitations out three weeks ago. I have gotten less than a third RSVPs back so far and not one decline. I think a lot of people that end up declining don't return the RSVP at all, or wait until the last minute to send it in because they are trying to decide. So that means that you would be sending out B list invitations way later than the first round. People told me not to do it because it was rude. I made lists to help me decide on who to invite (three lists actually) I ended up adding on most of my B list. I didn't send save the dates out to everyone though. It is so tricky. I added too many people and am hoping that it will work out, doesn't sound like you should do that though.

I'm telling everyone in the fam (FMIL) that wants to add anyone to the list, that "A List" is closed, that we will put them on the "B List"... but reality is, my one and only list is DONE, it is what it is, no more changes or possible last minute invites. - B lists makes some ppl feel better

We don't have a B list but there are people that we couldn't invite due to space limitations. We were upfront and honest with them. Most understood and asked that if anyone declines please let them know.

We did. It didn't work. Invites were sent out the end of March (I think!) with the sole intentions of hoping we could get some declines back and send some out to the second stringers.

RSVPs are due a week from Saturday and out of 110 or so sent, I've gotten back 51-ish. Out of those there is ONE decline.

Most people won't send declines in as early as the Yes's for two reasons:

1. When a person gets a wedding invite, they know IMMEDIATELY if they will be attending that wedding.

2. Mostly it seems that the declines are the ones that have to be hunted down or are sent in closer to the due date and I think this is because they don't want to hurt the bride and groom's feelings by sending in a NO a week after receiving the invitation and/or also because if they aren't attending the wedding and they know it, it no longer becomes a priority to them.

@Maltese, I am really finding this to be true. I have not received a single decline in the mail just two friends that have verbally said that their husbands won't be around. Almost none of my FI's family has RSVPed except for his parents. We are hearing from his parents that a lot of people won't come, but we are not hearing it from them yet. Part of it could also be that in their circle the whole RSVP card concept might be a little new. Who knows!

Annnnd, sorry to rant, I can't believe how many of my friends haven't RSVP'ed yet!! Unless someone has just had a wedding themselves, the younger people are not that on top of it!

Definitely don't invite more than what your venue and budget can handle. Especially if it's a smaller guest list and in town, you'll likely have a higher percentage of guests who will come.

That being said, I'm not a fan of the B list. Usually the decline responses come too late to send those out within a reasonable time frame. I once got an invite a week after the RSVP date (about 3 weeks before the wedding). Just invite who you can and don't overextend yourself