Choosing who to invite to your wedding will probably one of the toughest things you and your future spouse will have to decide.  If you think trying to decide what location you will have your wedding at is going to be tricky, then prepare yourself for choosing who you will or will not be sending a wedding invitation to, because you’re not going to be able to invite every single person you cross paths with in your life.  Not if you want to stay in the black on your budget.

It’s possible that feelings may get hurt in the process.  That’s just the way it is – remember, you can’t make everyone happy, and this is YOUR wedding.  You should really only be making YOU and your spouse happy.  It’s not your parents’ big day, it’s YOURS.  So don’t go and invite your mom’s second cousin’s best friend just because your mom asked (or told) you to if adding this person pushes your budget into the red – especially if you can’t stand the woman or if you don’t even know her.  Make sacrifices, and politely tell your mother you’re only inviting immediate family and your closest friends.  Hopefully, if the reason you and your future spouse are paying for your own wedding is because your parents could not afford to help, your mother will understand.  If not, then well, remember what I said a moment ago – you can’t make everyone happy.  If you try, you’ll just drive yourself nuts.  And wedding planning can be frustrating enough without the added pressure of everyone telling you who to send the wedding invitations to, so stick to your short list.

We had approximately 30 people attend our wedding, and this was a good number – not too many people so as to break our budget, but enough so that the dance floor was not barren. How many people you and your future spouse decide to invite will depend largely on your budget.  If your budget is say, $5000, then you can probably safely invite 80 to 100 people, which comes out to about $60 per person (for 80 people) or $50 per person (for 100 people).  Note that this is NOT how much you will actually spend on each person, because not everyone is going to eat all of the food you may have prepared or catered, or partake of the drinks you have at your wet bar (if it is an open bar). It’s just a rough idea of how far your budget will stretch per warm body who attends.

To figure out how many people you can afford to send a wedding invitation to, take your budget and divide it by about $50 to $60, and that will tell you how many people you can probably afford to invite.  If you think you are going to have your reception catered, then divide your budget by about $80 instead, and if you plan to have an open bar, add another $10-$20 per person.  See how it adds up?  If you are going to cater and have an open bar, suddenly your $5000 budget can only afford half the number people as before. So keep this all in mind when deciding who to invite and send your wedding invitations to.