How to write a wedding guest list without falling out with anyone

The guest list is the single most emotionally expensive document in a wedding. It decides the venue, the catering and roughly half the budget, and it is the only part of planning where a decision can hurt somebody's feelings for years.

It is much easier if you separate two things that usually get tangled: how many people you can have, and which people they are.

Start with the number, not the names

Work out the maximum first, from the venue capacity and the budget. Cost per head times guest count is the largest number in your budget, and it moves faster than anything else: thirty extra guests is often the difference between comfortable and stretched.

Write that number down and treat it as a wall, not a target. Every conversation afterwards is easier when there is a number to point at rather than a preference to defend.

The three-tier method

• Tier A: the wedding is not the wedding without them. Immediate family, the wedding party, the handful of friends who would be hurt beyond repair
• Tier B: you would love them there and would notice their absence. Wider family, close colleagues, old friends you still see
• Tier C: you would enjoy their company but the day works without them. Distant relatives, plus ones you have never met, your parents' friends

Fill tier A first, then B, then as much of C as the number allows. When the number runs out, it runs out, and it ran out on a rule rather than on a person, which is the entire point.

Who gets a say

Whoever is paying will feel they have a say, and pretending otherwise causes more trouble than agreeing it openly. A common settlement is to split the list into thirds (one for each set of parents, one for the couple) and let each side fill their own third however they like.

If you are paying for it yourselves, you can simply say so, kindly and early. It is far easier to set that expectation in month one than to remove twelve names in month eight.

Plus ones

Pick one rule and apply it to everybody. The common ones: everyone in a relationship gets a plus one; everyone who is married or living together gets one; everyone in the wedding party gets one. Any of these is defensible. What is not defensible is deciding case by case, because the pattern is always visible to the people affected.

Address the invitation to the named people only. A guest who is not invited with a partner should not have to infer it from the absence of a second name, but making the reply form refuse a second name does the work far more gently than a conversation.

Children

Also a single rule, applied to everybody: all children welcome, no children, or immediate family only. Say it on the invitation rather than leaving people to guess, and expect a small number of regrets from parents who cannot arrange childcare. That is the cost of the decision, and it is a fair one.

The B-list question

Sending a second wave of invitations after the first round of declines is common and works, on one condition: the second wave has to go out early enough that nobody could tell. Six weeks before the wedding is fine. Two weeks is not, and people always work it out.

The sentence that ends the conversation

We would have loved to have everyone, but the venue holds a hundred and twenty, and we had to draw a line somewhere painful. We hope you understand.

It is true, it is not a rejection of the person, and it does not invite negotiation. Say it once, warmly, and do not elaborate, because elaboration is what turns a decision into an argument.