This guest list business is not fun.
I never knew how hard it would be to create a guest list for a wedding, until I was in the predicament of making one myself. Sure, you might think it’s easy, but when you’re limited to 35 people, someone is bound to get left out. So, who do you invite? Do you go the ‘brag’ route and invite people who hate to see you happy? Do you invite your entire extended family? Do you just put names in a hat and draw randomly? These are questions I’ve been asking myself for months now and I finally came up with an easy system to help aid me in this task. It’s nothing too involved and it’s just three easy steps that I’ve made up on the fly.
Invite only people you’ve seen in the last year.
I know, insanity right? This was the hardest decision for me to make but I figured that if I haven’t seen you in the last year, that you weren’t that close to me to invite you to the wedding. Wait, that sounded a little harsh and that’s not exactly what I mean. What I meant to say was that I have a very limited list that I’m working with here and I can only invite so many people. I would love to invite all my friends and family but that’s just not a reality. No matter who I invite, someone is going to be upset. Lucky for me, upsetting people isn’t something that bothers me…most of the time.
Invite only people who make you happy.
This one kind of goes without saying but I’m going to say it anyways. A lot of times in life, you deal with people on a regular basis that you might not like and you do so out of some arbitrary obligation. It might be a family member who just annoys you or a friend that you’ve known all your life…who annoys you. Anyone who you think might cause friction at your wedding shouldn’t be there. You should be annoyance free on your wedding day and I plan on making this a reality. There’s not too many people in my life who fit this description, so if you’re reading this and I didn’t invite you, remember that we are having a small wedding and you don’t necessarily annoy me. Because if you do annoy me, I probably already told you so.
Do not invite people who you want to “show off” to.
You know who you are out there. You’re the guy that everyone said would never get married. Or maybe you’re that guy who loves to rub all the good things that happen to you in the faces of your past girlfriends. Be smart and do not invite people who you want to brag to. Not only is it extremely childish, but it might also be a recipe for disaster on your wedding day. The last thing you want is for that person to stand up during your ceremony and tell everyone that they object to the marriage. Then have that same person sloppy drunk at the reception and telling your wife all the insane crap you used to do in college. It might make a great movie scene but you don’t want that type of stuff in real life. Ideally, you only get married once and therefore only have one wedding. Don’t chance the day being ruined because you’re that petty guy who likes to brag to all his friends.
I’m pretty sure there are million other things I could think of while creating my guest list but I don’t like to over complicate things. If I was rich, I would just invite all the people I knew, minus the annoying ones, and call it a day. Unfortunately I’m not that rich yet so I’ll have to deal with what I have. If you have any suggestions of your own, put them in the comments! I would love to hear any feedback you might have to contribute. As of now, the guest list is still pending and I’m constantly shifting people around.
