Wedding Guest List Etiquette

Your wedding day is about so much more than a dress, flowers, and decor – it’s about the people you celebrate with. Creating your wedding guest list is one of the most important steps in wedding planning. As wedding stationery designers, we at Lily & Roe Co. know the ins and outs of wedding guest list etiquette. We’ve created the following guide to help you create your perfect guest list while prioritizing courtesy and etiquette. 

How to Start Your Wedding Guest List

Before you decide who should be invited to your wedding, it’s important to sit down and determine how many guests you will have. The two main influences on this number will be your venue capacity and your budget. Each venue has a number of guests that they allow due to fire marshall limits and their expected amount of staff. Since overcrowding can be a safety issue, this number cannot be surpassed and will be the absolute cap for your guest count. Your budget on the other hand, will help to determine how many guests you can realistically afford to have on your wedding day. Each guest will have a per-head cost for items such as food, alcohol, and rentals that you can use to estimate your total budget. 

Once you have determined how many total guests you will be inviting, you can start to consider who to invite. We recommend starting with your most important guests, like immediate family and wedding party, and then spreading out to more distant friends and family. You can also use different wedding guest systems like the “Rule of Thirds,” which suggests that the guest list is split into three parts – one for guests of the bride’s parents, one for guests of the groom’s parents, and one for guests of the couple. Alternatively, if one set of parents is paying for the wedding, they may be given more guests as a thank-you for their contribution.

A/B Guest Lists

As you begin your wedding planning research, you may see the terms A and B Guest Lists floating around online. This refers to having your initial guest list (A-List) to which you send out initial wedding invitations. When guests from your A-List decline their invitation, you then send an invitation to someone from your B-List to fill the spot. 

We do not recommend using the A/B List system, as it is poor etiquette. Ordering enough invitations and remembering to send them out is difficult to manage and more stressful than necessary. Talking amongst guests can also cause embarrassing moments. We recommend having one guest list that includes all of the people you would want to celebrate with and not refilling any spots when guests decline. 

Kids and Plus Ones

Perhaps the most complicated part of planning your wedding guest list is deciding whether you will invite kids and/or plus-ones. Whether or not you decide to invite children to your wedding, it’s important to communicate early with your guests. This will allow them to find childcare or make appropriate arrangements. If you decide to invite only some children on your wedding day, for example, just children of immediate family members, be aware that some other parents may be unhappy with the arrangement. If children will be present, it’s a good idea to provide them with activities and child-friendly food to keep them on their best behavior throughout the event. 

Allowing guests to bring plus-ones on your wedding day is a courtesy that has become less popular as the cost of weddings has gone up. While once it was common for any single guest to receive a plus-one, we usually see this now reserved for immediate family members or the wedding party. Standard etiquette states that all spouses, fiancés, and live-in partners of guests should receive an invitation, but any new or casual couples are up to your discretion. 

Wedding Etiquette with Lily & Roe Co. 

As wedding stationery and sign designers, we’re constantly aware of wedding etiquette and how it can evolve. What was considered proper etiquette thirty years ago might not be considered the same today. When creating your wedding guest list, it’s important to make sure that you’re including everyone you want to celebrate with and that you’re being as courteous to your guests as possible. Once you have the perfect list, head over to our collections to find a sophisticated wedding invitation for your big day.