When to stop adding to the guest list....

We had a hard limit on how many guests we could invite because the venue capacity is 95. We invited 100 knowing that a few were definitely not going to make it because of health reasons. FH added about 5 extra people after even save the dates were sent out. His justification is always that most of his family won't be able to come. So, its annoying but it happens.

FH and I are getting married next month and we added the last two people to our guest list about 2 months ago. We sent out STDs in January to about 120 guests, and our final list was 151 guests. Not everyone who was invited received a Save the Date and that is okay. I wouldn't bet on too many people saying no though. Try to stick to your guns around a rough number (if you have the wiggle room at the venue and in your budget).

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That makes me feel better. 1 person shouldn't really be an issue if we decide to add them after the fact. But you're right, definitely need to try to stick with the guest list.

View Quoted Comment Yes! With the Save the Dates, it helped me to remember that they're most helpful for people who are out of town or work in a field that is difficult to take time off from. Because of that, they're more a courtesy than a necessity!

If there are people you are questioning too, they don't have to get a save the date.. you could just send them an invite and skip the std.

If I made a new friend right now, we wouldn’t be close enough for me to consider inviting them to my wedding.

We started with a definitive cut off - without any wiggle room for RSVP 'no's. We also included a plus one for any guest who wasn't already a couple. That way there were no surprises that had to be finagled later on.

Daughter specifically ONLY sent STDs to family, OOT guests, and VIPs -- probably only about 65% of the guest list. She and SIL are part of a huge, local "friend group"; in that group, she only sent STDs to those in the wedding party. That gave her some wiggle room as it got closer to when the invitations needed to go out. She ended up dropping some non-STD people they hadn't seen much in the prior 4-5 months (the time since the STDs were sent) and adding co-workers & her boss who she'd grown very close to (and had been incredibly supportive/generous about time off, etc., related to the wedding). I'd strongly encourage leaving yourself wiggle room -- STDs are not required, and they are certainly not required for every guest.

We didn't decide what friends to invite until close to the wedding. Before we booked our venue we wrote a guest list of family that we knew we'd definitely invite and left space in the guest list for friends. We sent save the dates to family and the bridal party 11 months in advance since we were having a Friday wedding. We waited until under 6 months away to decide on what non bridal party friends to invite.

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Good advice! Thank you!

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This is a good plan!

We have a limit of 160 for our venue so we needed to invite 130 people or less to make sure our wedding party and there SO fit. We ended up with 123 invited. There were 2 people that we had originally not put on the list then felt bad because they are really good friends so we sent them one. We've received 3 nos back (6 people) so it worked out. Like PP said, stick to a number as best you can. Adding 1 or 2 people won't make much difference especially if you aren't at your max yet but I wouldn't add anyone else.

I would not send STDs to anyone you're not absolutely sure you want there. You can send an invitation to someone to whom you did not send an STD. But you can't decide not to invite anyone to whom you already sent an STD.