How to Cut a Wedding Guest List Without Starting a Family Argument

Your mother's email arrived at 7:40 this morning with eleven more names in it. Three are relatives you have met once, two are neighbors, and one is a woman from her church whose name you are reading for the first time. Your wedding guest list is at 214. The room holds 120.

Last week you tried it the obvious way, going down the column and deleting. You removed nine names, had two arguments, and one of the arguments was about a person you had both agreed to cut in June.

You cannot delete a name you did not add

The column is one list on your screen and three lists everywhere else. Some of those names are yours and your partner's. The rest came from your parents and from your partner's parents.

Deleting downward asks you to rule on people you have met twice, in front of the people who invited them. So the row survives and you move to the next one.

Sort the whole wedding guest list before you cut a name

Three tiers. Each side runs the tests on its own names, and each test is a test rather than a feeling.

Must have. You would move the date before you would hold the wedding without them.

Should have. You have started a conversation with them in the last twelve months. Replying to one of theirs does not count.

Nice to have. Everybody left over. If you are hesitating over a name, it belongs here.

The 214 sort out like this.

Who added the name	Must have	Should have	Nice to have
The two of you	38	44	30
Your parents	18	26	14
Your partner's parents	12	21	11
All three sides	68	91	55

The should have list is where the cutting happens

Seat the 68 must haves and 52 chairs are left. There are 91 should haves standing in front of them, so the job is 39 names, every one of them somebody on this list started a conversation with inside the last year.

The 55 nice to haves are who you invite when somebody says no. That list has to exist on the day the first invitations go in the mail. A second envelope needs time to go out and come back before your caterer wants a final number, and the invitations, the deadline and the headcount run on a clock you cannot speed up.

Hand each side a number for the 52 chairs that are left

Nobody can make 39 cuts across three people's friendships. Whoever added a name is the one who takes it off.

Split the 52 chairs 26, 13 and 13. Half goes to the two of you because you are two sides of the list already, and the rest splits evenly so neither family is being measured against the other. Send those three shares in one message so everybody reads them at the same time. Then each side takes its own should have list down to its own number. Yours goes from 44 to 26. Your parents go from 26 to 13. Your partner's parents go from 21 to 13.

One rule holds the sort together. A must have is somebody you would move the date for, and a side that produces forty of them has skipped the test.

Money moves the shares and should move them in writing. If your partner's parents are paying for the catering, their 13 becomes 20 and the two of you drop from 26 to 19. Take it out of your own share rather than out of the parents who are not part of that arrangement, and put the reason in the same message.

What to say to the parent who sent eleven names

You reply with two numbers and a question.

"Your share of what is left is 13. Your should have list is 26. Tell us which 13."

Her eleven names moved that list from 15 to 26, and she is the person in this family who can sort it. Expect four answers back, and have the line ready for each.

She sends it back unsorted. Sort it yourself, send her the 13 you picked, and tell her she can swap any of them for any name you dropped. She keeps the veto and loses the pen.

She asks you to choose. "We are picking our 26. You pick your 13." Repeat it as often as it takes, in the same words, because a sentence that changes shape sounds like a position that is moving.

She is paying for part of the day. Her share was already larger when you sent the numbers, so the answer is the number she agreed to on the day she agreed to it.

A twelfth name arrives next month. Every name after the shares go out is a swap. "Happy to add her. Which of the 13 comes off?"

Expect her to negotiate the 13 itself, and let her, because a share is an ordinary thing for two adults to argue over. Whether her cousin deserves a chair is the argument you were trying to avoid.

Cutting the list saves less than you are expecting

On a 34,000 dollar wedding seating 117, one extra person adds about 77 dollars. Catering, one more invitation and a favor are close to all of it.

Getting a wedding guest list from 214 names to 120 chairs is 94 cuts, so about 7,200 dollars, more if the bar is open, and nothing at all for any of it that falls under your venue's food and drink minimum. That is worth having and it will not rescue a budget. Cut the list because 214 people will not fit in the room, which the venue enforces.

What to do this week

Sort your own 112 names first, before anybody else gets a number. You cannot ask your mother to take 13 names off her list while yours is still 112 rows of everybody you have ever liked.

Then send the three shares. Her list is 26 and her share is 13, and the reply that ends this is one line long.