It can be a daunting task:  choosing who gets to come celebrate your special day with you.  You do not want hurt feelings or people to wonder why they weren’t invited.  Merging families and friends comes with a lot of decisions to be made, and that starts with the wedding guest list.  So how do you decide?  Lake County Bridal offers these tips:

1.  Make a list of your family members on both sides.  They should be definite guests (unless you are having a very small wedding or are estranged from your family).  Put all of the people you want to absolutely invite after your family members.  Those you absolutely want at your wedding should be listed first because they are the easiest to think of.

2.  Take a look at your budget after you have all of your absolutes to determine approximately how many more guests you can invite.  This may also determine if you include an “and guest” on your invites.

3.  Have both of your parents make their own lists and merge them with your own.  Work together with everyone so that you are all on the same page.  It may take some time and a lot of convincing, but eventually you can come up with one master list that everyone can at least mostly agree on.

4.  Do not feel obligated to invite your coworkers.  If they are a big part of your lives, then by all means.  You should also never send out a mass invite or hang an invite on the bulletin board.  You do not know how many will be showing up to crash the party!  At the same time, do not invite everyone and leave out one or two.  Generally, the rule is to invite anyone from work that you hang out with after work hours on a regular basis.

5.  You can choose to NOT invite children.  Of course, you may hurt some feelings by doing this, but if you are having an evening black-tie wedding, children may not exactly fit in.  If you choose to invite them, you may need to provide childcare, which can be an added expense.  You should, however, invite children in your immediate family.

6.  Remember that it is your day as a couple, and you get to have the final say!

Building a guest list can be one of the most stressful details when planning your wedding day, but with these tips from Lake County Bridal, hopefully it will be a little easier.  Remember always that it is your day, and you do not have to invite anyone that you do not want crashing the most important day of your life!