SHORTLISTING CANDIDATES

Groupings

You will very quickly find that ‘groups’ will develop when it comes to guest lists. In other words, rather than just being able to invite your Uncle Bob and Auntie Mary, all of your Uncles and Aunties may need to be invited or all hell could break loose!

Grouping guests is an ideal way to aid budgeting and split guests between Full Day and Evening Do only. The Guest Management planning tool in MyWeddingsday should help you do this.  

Children

Do we invite children or don’t we? This is a question that many couples will ask themselves, especially if they don’t have kids of their own.

Children can make a wedding – their excited faces beaming at the pretty colours and decorations and bouncing away on the dance-floor when the DJ mistakenly plays ‘I am the Music Man’. Likewise, kids can ruin a day – screaming and running around like drug-fuelled idiots, crying during the Service and throwing tantrums when mummy or daddy refuses to play hide and seek with them during the speeches!

Granted, if the kids that are potentially to be invited are more like the latter than the former, then the decision may already be made for you. That said, the majority of children (assuming they have responsible parents with them!) can be relied upon to add colour and vibrancy to the day - not inviting them could detract from the day as well as angering their parents or causing them a potential nightmare in trying to find a babysitter. The only piece of advice we will give is to be consistent. If it is to be an adult only affair then so be it, as long as guests with children are informed early enough. But likewise, if you do invite the children of one guest, then you should do so for all.

We told you it wasn’t easy didn’t we? Well hopefully we will have given you some food for thought and it is important to bear all these factors in mind as you go on to formulate the final guest list. Take a look at the Making the Final Decision article for advice on what to do next.