Title: 
Settling On The Size Of Your Wedding

Word Count:
337

Summary:
How many people and who exactly to invite to your wedding day is one of the biggest challenges you will face during the planning process. Making the guest list is difficult. You may find yourself making compromises due to parental, budgetary, reception site size, location and several other forces.

First you need to decide if your wedding is going to be an once-in-a-lifetime huge party or smaller more intimate event. Your budget will most certainly limit the number of guest...


Keywords:
wedding, wedding favors, wedding planning, wedding reception


Article Body:
How many people and who exactly to invite to your wedding day is one of the biggest challenges you will face during the planning process. Making the guest list is difficult. You may find yourself making compromises due to parental, budgetary, reception site size, location and several other forces.

First you need to decide if your wedding is going to be an once-in-a-lifetime huge party or smaller more intimate event. Your budget will most certainly limit the number of guests. Once you set your budget for the reception, you can quickly do the math and decide the maximum number of guests. More than $16 billion is spent on wedding receptions in the U.S. Your reception will probably account for the largest part of your wedding budget. In some cases, nearly half of the total wedding budget is spent on the reception.

Most reception sites charge per-head. If your budget is $6000 for the reception, and the cost per head is $65.00, you could have no more than 92 guests. There are many ways to cut expenses such as buying your own alcohol, having a buffet instead of a served dinner. Undoubtedly, you must take budgetary boundaries into account when preparing the guest list.

If your parents are paying for the wedding, you are going to have to respect their input for the final list. The more your parents are footing the bill, the more you may need to compromise. The more relatives you have to invite, the longer the guest list is going to be. Your list will also be affected by the size of the reception site. Be sure that you don’t fall in love with a site until you are sure that it can accommodate all the people you plan to invite.

Traditionally, the bride and groom’s family each invite half of the total number of guests. Usually, the major check writers are calling the shots. If you and your fiancée are paying for the wedding, you should decide the majority of the guest list.