Who should I invite to my wedding?

This is perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of wedding planning other than making sure you can afford the affair! At first, you likely will want to invite everyone that has touched your life in a certain way; then, as you start to add those numbers together you will realize that it can quickly and easily get beyond your budget and venue capacity. There are two things you need to decide:

1. Count: how many people can you comfortably afford (from a spatial and financial perspective)?
2. Style: what kind of wedding do you want (large and inclusive or small and exclusive)?

Once you answer those questions, you and your fiancé can then create your A-list (people that you MUST have at the wedding). At the same time, you should have both sets of parents do the same. Once you merge those lists together, undoubtedly you will need to move people from the A to the B-list. Sorry cousin Billy! This can be difficult, but keep in mind you are deciding who gets a wedding invite, not who picks the winning mega millions lottery numbers.

Here are a couple of tips:

• Remember where the bank is: whoever is funding the majority of the affair should get a tad more leeway and invitations for their A-list (within reason of course).

• Invite the people that are important to you: that you plan on having a relationship with in the future. We all have old friends that have drifted; however, a wedding is not always the best time or most economical way to rekindle.

• Plus 1 or not: is always the question. The unwritten rule is if a couple is married (obviously, hello), engaged, living together or has dated for several years they should be invited with their partner. In terms of everyone else, if you are going to have a lot of single people at your wedding, you don’t necessarily have to invite people with dates. If you have the space (and extra finances) and think it would make people have a better time, then you should. It all goes back to how many A-lists spots you have left

All in all, it is your day so you should make sure the affair doesn’t turn out to be the party someone else (your parents) always dreamed.