Critical to the
head count is the choice of wedding/reception site. If
you are set on a small country church but plan to invite 200 people, you’ve got a
problem. So figure out which will have to be
sacrificed: the guests or the venue.
My daughter and her intended were adamant about the
venue they wanted. And also about the format: a
sit-down dinner and dancing afterwards. The
romantic banqueting hall at the Royal
Geographical Society was certainly a delightful choice, but it could only seat 100 human
beings.
 It was soon obvious that this was quite impossible. My husband suggested a cocktail reception so that
many more people could be included. “No,”
said the couple. When it began to look as if my
husband’s best friend of 50 years was one of the guests to be cut, some harsh words
were exchanged in our usually happy family. At
one point the groom became convinced that it was all part of a secret plot with my
daughter to keep numbers down.
But there are ways around this in the form of an
ante-room. True, it means that people may be
out of hearing of the speeches and toasts, but you can think creatively to get over the
problem. In our case, it was my son who
suggested that we put all the swinging singles
and the young marrieds together in the outer room where they could talk about their
particular preoccupations while the older generation got on with its own life.
It worked a treat. The
table plans were simple to work out. We all had
a rollicking time and when the speeches began the younger generation filed in and provided
a most enthusiastic standing audience for the best man and groom’s
performances.
The food factor
 Costs for a stand-up reception with canapés will
be considerably less than a three or four course sit-down dinner, and you won’t have
to deal with problems about vegetarians as long as you provide a good variety of foods.
You don’t have to grapple with the seating plan either.
But if it is to be a sit-down meal, you have various
options: ask on the invitations for people to
state if they have any dietary needs, or provide a vegetarian choice on the menu, or
include a substantial vegetarian dish as part of the main course to accompany the fish or
meat.
A guide to pruning the lists
· First
step is to go through your guest list and put an “A” or a “B” next to
each name. The A’s are the absolute
“must invites” and the B list is everyone else.
· The
next step is to cut the B list. Ask yourself
these questions:
Have I seen this person in the last 12 months?
Have I spoken with this person in the last six months?
If you answered “no” to the questions above,
these are probably candidates to consider cutting from
your guest list. Still too many?
· Don’t
invite parents’ friends, particularly if the couple don’t know them very well.
(Exception to this rule. If parents are paying
for all or a majority of the wedding they may be entitled to more input regarding the
guest list and other areas of the planning.)
· Don’t
invite old school or university friends that you know you’ll never see again.
· Don’t
invite second or third cousins.
· Don’t
invite business colleagues unless of course it’s your boss.
· Don’t
invite children unless they are part of the “inner” family.
· Don’t
allow single people without “significant others” to bring a date.
· Don’t
invite people just because you were invited to their wedding.
Remember, when deciding on numbers you can invite more
than the limit. The general rule is that 25 per
cent of the invitees will not be able to come, but they will be very pleased that you did
invite them. The strategy some people use is to
invite all of the As and when they start declining pick up the Bs. Yes, that too can be a
headache if you are sending out late invitations, but you might explain the problem to the
new names on the B list and hope they understand. After
all, they might have been through it too…
Who is paying?
Because the bride’s parents traditionally paid for
the wedding, they usually determined the number of guests and told the groom’s
parents how many people they were allotted. Times
have changed. Now that couples are paying for
some – if not all - of the expenses themselves, they usually decide how many people to invite and are
likely to divide that number between their two families or allocate a certain number to
each family after they have put their friends on the A list.
Can parents negotiate on this one? Yes of course. But
don’t demand your ‘rights’ if you want everyone to be on speaking terms on
the day of the wedding. Parents could always
offer to contribute funds to pay for extra numbers. If
you do this, spare a thought for the other set of parents and sound them out on the
situation. It can get very delicate when, for
instance, one set of parents can afford more than the other or they want more guests on
their list. Like marriage, most weddings
require compromise.
What if the couple is already living
together
If the couple are already living together, they may want
to try a different formula to the traditional wedding feast. Dierdre
decided on a three-stage wedding. Because she
and her partner had been living together for four years, they didn’t need a big show.
 The couple chose to go to the registry office for
the wedding ceremony. No family was in
attendance. But a luncheon in a restaurant followed with only 35 close relations and
dearest friends invited, an event that proved
relaxed and memorable. Friends of the parents, some who knew the newly marrieds since their toddler days, were invited in for the evening for drinks at the house of one set
of parents’.
There are other variations. Increasingly, there are the couples who do their weddings on Caribbean
islands, with but a few friends and perhaps only close family in attendance. Later on they
may have a reception back home.
Hurt feelings
Most likely, someone is going to feel hurt. It goes with the event and you have to make
allowances for it. Don’t be too hasty with
the condemnations. The hurt person usually gets
over it, as do the hosts. Remember, as with marriage, most weddings require compromise.
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New year, new plans.
