AisleDash

Your eyes keep shifting between your budget spreadsheet and your potential guest list. You love your friends and family -- all 250 of them -- but at 35 bucks a head for dinner, you can't afford to invite them all. You could save thousands of dollars by cutting your guest list in half, but how do you decide who makes and who misses the cut? This part of wedding planning is no fun.

So here's an idea: instead of an expensive, fancy feast that blows your whole wedding budget, ask your guests to bring a dish to share instead of a gift. Provide guests who travel or guests who simply don't cook with a list of pre-made items that can be bought at your local grocery store, and appoint someone to field all the phone calls about what to bring. Sure there will be some repeats, but with several dozen guests, you'll surely get a nice variety for your buffet.

Make sure your invitations are clear about this. "In lieu of gifts, the bride and groom request that you bring your favorite dish to serve at our reception buffet. Call Mandy, the Maid of Honor, at 555-5555 with questions." Then you can take the money you saved on food and buy your own wedding gifts, so you get exactly what you need and want. Encourage guests to include the recipe with the dish they bring, so that you can create a wedding cookbook. You can even post the recipes online to share with all the guests.

My family is from Virginia. His is from Oregon. Both of our families are huge. Getting everyone together for a wedding would have been a huge expense for everyone involved. At least half of our potential guest list would be facing a cross country trip, and then we'd be facing the bill to host them all. Oof.

So we eloped.

The cost of traveling is a huge concern these days, and you should consider how much you're asking of people when you invite them to a wedding hundreds of miles from home. If your guests share my family's mentality that weddings are mandatory, then you might actually be doing them a favor by trimming the guest list. You don't have to elope, but keeping a wedding small and intimate will save money across the board, not to mention the environmental impact of all that travel.

One of the greatest stresses for any bride and groom is the matter of the guest list -- who to invite, who to leave off and who to constantly bump heads over. Capping the guest list is a wise financial choice as the headcount dictates the cost of many things. Just a few examples: most venues charge you for dinner (either sit-down or buffet) by the headcount, the cake is quoted to you by the headcount, the favors, the save-the-date cards and the invitations are all ordered with the headcount in mind. If you keep your guest list to a set amount, the costs will be cut across the board. It makes logical sense, but that doesn't make it any easier.

You want to invite everyone in your mutual address books, and sometimes just the families alone can add up to 50+ people. How do you make the hard decisions over who to include and who to, well, exclude?

One of the hardest things about being engaged is knowing when to share and when to zip your lip. If you work in an office, you will likely run into a couple of challenges.

First of all, your coworkers will probably ask you all about the details, and you might really want to share every single bit of planning -- it's fun to have people excited for you! At the same time, though, you need to make sure you're holding your own as far as your job goes, so even if you're dying to share your new wedding website (and show your coworkers your favorite AisleDash posts), you need to still focus on work.

Aside from just handling your duties during work hours, you need to consider how the sharing of details will affect your guest list. If you tell people all about the wedding, they'll expect to be invited, so if you're trying to keep your guest list numbers down, you need to keep your plans to yourself. Check out this article at Forbes for more advice on handling your wedding at work.

Depending on the bride's location in relation to bridesmaids, friends, and family, a number of different bridal showers could possibly take place.

Many times there's a family-based shower, which includes aunts, cousins, grandmothers, etc. Then, there might be the slightly more risque lingerie shower with the bride's best friends. And then there are the showers based on organizations to which the bride belongs -- church, work, clubs, etc.

Dear Ask AisleDash,

When I mentioned to my mom the other day that we were about to mail out our invitations, she suddenly became very upset with me. She was mad because we finalized the guest list without asking her who she wanted to invite. Now she wants us to add a bunch of people to the list -- some that we don't want and some that we don't even know. How do we tell her that this is our wedding and she doesn't get to choose the guest list?

-Frustrated with Mom

Dear Frustrated,

This is a sticky situation, and someone has committed a faux pas. But you haven't given me enough information to know whether that is you or your mother. The key information is who is paying for the wedding.

Yesterday, Kristen wrote about Michelle Singletary's financial advice for engaged couples. (Speed recap: Singletary advises saving first and then spending on the wedding.) I'm not going to dispute the advice, but I am curious about what parts of a wedding are really expendable and what parts are not.

Singletary starts her essay by saying that one of the first recommendations she makes for cutting the budget is to cut the guest list. "It all started," she writes, "when someone on a tight budget asked: 'How do I find a place and feed 100 people?' I responded that the best solution is to stick to your budget and cut the guest list.

"Well, you would have thought I had attacked the very institution of family."

Commenters argued that weddings aren't about just the bride and groom, but about the joining of two families, and to cut the guest list would be to exclude family members from this celebration of -- well, of family.

And so I started thinking: how many of the guests on YOUR list are actually FAMILY? Not sorority sisters or those girls from high school who were LIKE sisters to you -- people who are related to you by blood or marriage. Is your family half the list? A quarter? Ninety percent? And could you cut the guest list to JUST family? Or will you find a way to pay for it all so that you can have your friends with you on your wedding day?

AisleDash wants to know.

I won't lie -- our wedding caused us some debt. Not a down payment on a house amount, but some. In retrospect, I feel it was totally worth it -- all the families pitched in, and we had an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for friends and family from both sides to meet.

However, one of the things I've read over and over again is that, if you're trying to cut costs, the first thing to do is to cut your guest list. And, as hard as that is to do, it's correct -- feeding guests gets pricey! So, as I read this article about wedding costs, I agreed with the author that the size of the guest list greatly impacts the budget. However, when she went into detail on how a couple should determine their budget, I agreed considerably less.

According to Michelle Singletary, if you want to spend money on your wedding, you should have all the money you plan to spend in savings, plus the following:

This is a true bridezilla story: A young woman, we'll call her Young Woman, recently received a wedding invitation addressed to Young Woman and guest. The young woman had recently ended a long term relationship, but she didn't know many people who would be at the wedding, so she invited a friend as her "and guest" and RSVP'd for two, Young Woman and New Guy.

Upon receipt of this RSVP, the bride called the young woman to say that she could not bring the new guy. "Only people in serious relationships are allowed to bring guests," said the bridezilla. That's funny, since the invitation only specified "guest," not a specific person. Surely there's space at the reception for the new guy if there was space for the ex, so why is the bride forcing her friend to un-invite her date? Because she's being unreasonable, that's why.

Over the weekend, the New York Times Style section included an interesting article on what has become the biggest wedding dilemma of all for some couples: the rules for including children. According to the Times, "Surprisingly, there is less professional guidance on the topic than a bride and bridegroom might hope for. Of the hundreds of wedding planning books on the Barnes & Noble Web site, there isn't one exclusively devoted to it.'

While we cannot imagine that one needs an entire BOOK on children at the wedding, we can see how the question of whether or not to include the wee ones could indeed be the most vexing decision a bride and groom might have to make. After all, no matter what you decide, you are guaranteed to anger someone.



With that in mind (you're welcome!), here are three hard-and-fast rules about kids at weddings:

When Isla Fisher sends out invitations for her wedding to Sascha Baron Cohen, she will not be inviting Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. "I'm thinking of not inviting Owen and Vince so I can see whether they can crash our wedding," Fisher told The Daily Mail. She co-starred with the two in Wedding Crashers in 2005.

Cohen and Fisher, who have a three month old daughter, Olive, have been engaged since 2004. As part of the planning for the wedding, Fisher converted to Judaism. The couple have not set a date for the wedding, thought, which will make it harder for Vaughn and Wilson to crash.

Good etiquette says that when someone receives a wedding invitation, they should buy a gift. If you have a lot of out-of-town friends or relatives, if you're having your wedding away from home, or if your wedding is very small, many of your friends may not be able to be there. This can pose a challenge to making out your guest list. Here's the dilemma: If you know someone can't attend, should you send them an invitation or does that just look like a gift request?

Traditionally, couples have sent invitations to those whose presence is requested and announcements (which don't carry a gifting obligation) to those with whom they want to share the news but not invite. I know, another compile-list-order-print-sort-mail task is enough to make you dizzy, but you can simplify the process. Send an invitation to anyone you are really close to or anyone who would feel kind of left out if they didn't receive one (chances are these people would want to buy at least a small gift for you anyway). These are the people who probably already know about your engagement because you keep in reasonably good touch with them. Now you're left with a list of acquaintances with whom you don't keep in touch regularly but still want to share your news. If there's just a few, consider a simple mailing of hand-written cards. If it's near the holidays, write a note on your holiday cards about your upcoming nuptials, or if you are moving after the wedding, combine your announcement with a change of address card. This will keep people in the loop with current news and contact information without making them feel like they have to run out and buy a gift.

A lot has been written about the infamous guest list and the trouble it can cause. That's because good news travels fast, and everyone likes a party. In the real world, though, we can't accommodate every possible invitee. Whether it's family adding every dog, cat and person they've met in the last 40 years, or your own wish not offend anyone, or people actually inviting themselves, you can reign in the ever-expanding guest list.

Define some boundaries: It helps to define some clear "rules" about the size of your wedding. If, for example, you explain to acquaintances and coworkers that yours is a small, intimate wedding for family, they will not be offended when they don't receive an invitation. These definitions can also help clarify for your family who they should invite and who they should rule out this time around.

Set actual limits: If your family gets out of control and skeletons are popping out of closets everywhere, try giving each side (yours and your fiance's) a specific number of guests to work with. They can invite who they like, but are limited to the number you have given them. If one side of the family wants to celebrate with zillions of their closest friends, perhaps they can arrange a separate get-together in your honor.

You'd think that some things are so simple, no one would screw them up. Like RSVP cards. How much easier can they get? Still, you won't believe how many people will neglect to put their name on that little line, or writes so illegibly you can't tell if it's Uncle Charles or Cousin Sherry that's coming with one guest -- or maybe that's a "3," actually.

To save yourself from calling everyone on your guest list, here's a simple trick. Before you send the invitations out, put all your guests' names in a spreadsheet, assigning a number to each invitation. Then, very discretely on the back of the RSVP card, write the number that corresponds to the guest who is getting that invitation. Then when you get the RSVP card back with "YAY!" written on the line where the name goes, you'll still know who's replying.

You'll still have to make some phone calls -- to the people who don't reply at all, and to the people who were unclear on the number of guests in their party -- but this little trick will save you lots of headaches.

Putting together your guest list can be one of the most daunting tasks in planning your wedding. Because the reception and its associated costs make up about 50% of your total wedding expenses, start by making sure you have a solid budget number and template.

Next, outline some broad, but clear distinctions. For example, you might define your wedding as a small and intimate one for very close friends only. This immediately sets some boundaries regarding work colleagues and acquaintances. Or, you might define a large wedding that can accommodate some of these additional guests. Whatever you decide, make the lines clear. These distinctions will help you manage the family (if necessary) and help others (coworkers, casual friends, etc.) set their expectations about whether or not they will be invited. It's important that everyone (including you!) sticks to these boundaries.

Compile four lists – the list of people you want to invite and similar lists from your fiancé, your family, and his family. Make it clear to everyone from the beginning that changes, cuts, and decisions may have to be made (if you suspect that family may get out of control, you might give them a set number of people, like 30 per family, that they can use how they like). Use these lists to develop the final version, making sure you have complete contact information for each person on the list (here's a template). Keep in mind that you must include the spouse or partner of each guest, the person conducting the ceremony and his/her partner, and the parents of any children in the ceremony.

If conflicts arise, go back to your original definitions and boundaries. Sometimes things get heated depending on who's paying and who's inviting. If this happens, use honest and open communication with lots of tact, acknowledge others' feelings even if you can't honor their wishes, keep the end goal in mind, and be open to compromises. With a little work and a little patience, you'll soon put one of the tougher planning tasks behind you.