Wedding numbers - how many did you have?

[Woahtherehoney]

Hello, I recently got engaged and am starting wedding planning

how many people did you all invite to the day and then the evening part of your wedding? I really don’t know how many people is too many or not! I have quite a big family but also lots of friends so need to work out who I may only be able to invite to the evening.

@Feysriana we had the same number. Wanted to be able to have time with all our guests rather than a quick 5 minute chat

Just me, DH and our adult children and partners, so 7. We went for afternoon tea.

About 40. Small family and don't have hundreds of friends.

120 for whole event. No kids.
Don't like only going to one part of a wedding thing, unless the ceremony is very small.

We knew we'd have big numbers so only looked at places that could accommodate 100+ day time.

Think we ended up with 130 day time and an extra 70 at night.

Was very relaxed and had it on a local farm. Was more important to have all the people we wanted there than to have a swanky menu or venue so cut the cloth to fit iyswim

Ours was 150 for entire event.

We had only those people we'd happily buy an expensive meal for. So immediate family, a couple of best friends each, plus one other relative.

We were stony broke, but in hindsight I'd still do it the same way. We only had people who actually cared about us and wanted to be there, instead of attending out of obligation or to socialise on our dime when they don't much care.

140 for the whole day, no evening extras. Only kids were ours and nieces/nephews, 7 in total.

We completely lost track. We invited 120 to both day and evening and all but two came. It was a bloody good job it was sunny, we had outside entertainment, we’d over catered and not bothered with a table plan because it turned out that DH’s side were inviting random people as and when they saw them and I think we had an extra 40 odd people, not including those who had seen a function going on and had just wandered in from the public bar to have a drink with their mates (it was in a rugby club). The usher turned up with his mum and they sat in mine and DH’s seats for the entire reception, despite having bride and groom signs on them. I had cancelled my make up artist because I couldn’t have my trial until the week before and she made me look like a drag queen, so the woman who did my nails offered to do it (I think she was qualified and I did love it) but she’d have to rush because she was going to a wedding. Turns out it was ours and DH’s aunt had invited her. And at one point, I had to extract one of my very prim and proper friends because the lads from the rugby team had wandered up for some of the hog roast and had corralled her into doing shots with them 😂 It was not a formal affair!

Essentially, I’m advising you to keep an iron grip on your guest list!

50

About 70 to ceremony and reception, another 15-20 in the evening. I felt it was an ideal number for us, as didn’t have to cut and I spoke to everyone. Don’t forgot you’ll have at least 10% of invitees not be able to or want to attend

Eight. Including us. Ceremony and gorgeous lunch at a historic hotel, then drove off on honeymoon at tea time.

If we’d gone out to wider family, I’d have had about 100 on my side, and DH about 8. So we just went with parents and sibs. Always intended to have a big party for friends but we bought a house instead!

We had 93, no separate day / night do just people invited to the whole thing. I found my part of the guest list really easy as I just knew straight away who I wanted to be there but my partner dithered a lot over Mother's neighbours/distant cousins etc etc. I think it's a good idea to think about your budget first as other people have said and go from there. We went for cheaper food (pie and peas) to be able to have more guests on our budget, but for other people it might be important to have amazing food etc.
I felt like a good guide for whether someone should be invited was, would they come round for a cuppa and if the answer was no then why would they invite them to our wedding!

30 during covid

was lovely and cheaper!

We had 70 to tbe whole thing.

100, for the whole day and night, probably 50:50 on relatives, and friends, BUT it was miles away from everyone (Scottish borders) so all had to travel, so no chance of having a day do and an evening do. Fairly formal, but we did shop around on price of meals (and no cars, we did the flowers, no extras, married late, so one dinner and a small buffet at 9pm). We asked for no children, but some came. Although it was wonderful, very atmospheric location etc. and all enjoyed it, I have come to realise that I was probably being a bit of a bridezilla insisting on the perfect location. If I was doing it again, I'd go for a much smaller service locally as late as possible (still in a church for me, but a nice place if not, and you can marry in SO many more places these days) then have a far more casual meal after, probably buffet, pub locally that you like with good beer garden. Good luck with whatever you decide.

Nobody! Just the 2 of us and random man as witness in New York. Perfect.

This is my concern - if I invited all family I’d have hundreds so I have to be quite brutal but I have friends I’m closer to and see more than my family so!

Invite the people you see often and have a relationship with first & then fill with extras if there are spare invitations.

Have the wedding term time mid week to limit the numbers if you have a lot of obligation invitations.

Limit the number of bridesmaids, pages fancy cars & fancy bits.

Remember, once you mention the word wedding then supepliers add on £££.

We didn't want a huge wedding but have big families so decided to keep it to parents, siblings, partners and their DCs family-wise and then closest friends. Which would have been about 30. However we didn't want a church wedding, are from different areas of the UK, my immediate family live 100s of miles from the extended families and we were in the middle of relocating between yet another two areas so it was hard to decide on a location, we settled on my parents area. But the register office was miles away and very few venues had civil licences in those days so we had a choice of very small (less than 12, not enough for family) or 50+. We opted for 50+ and expanded the friends list till we were at 50 or so as entire families out to cousins would have been nearer 100. It meant we had some of our parents oldest friends who had known us our whole lives as well as our own friends and it was lovely

We invited about 50 in the day, think a few people couldn't come, and one person was unwell on the day and couldn't come. Then invited about another 50 to the reception but a lot more people said they couldn't come to that so there was probably only around 35-40 extra evening guests. And a few of the daytime guests left almost as soon as the reception started really after the first dance e.g. a few elderly tired relatives and a few people with very onerous work schedules who were tired and/or going to work later that night or ridiculously early the next morning. I actually kinda wish with hindsight we'd invited more people given how many couldn't come as the venue was really big so plenty of space.