Thursday, November 08, 2007

Guest List - UGH!

So I have started to compile the guest list. Right now I just have my side of it that I am working on. I am for sure going to need lots of advice and help on this part because I forsee this being a very difficult thing.

My first question is how do you deal with kids at the wedding? I'm not against kids being at the wedding, but my main question comes to how do you count them for food? I will use Shannon as an example and hopefully she won't mind :) I will invite Shannon and her family...that will be an invitation for 4 (yay 8 days till Codi!!). Now Brandon will eat food...but will Codi he will be close to a year old...I'm not sure how to include them? Or what about kids that are around Brandon's age...would they count as a full meal? I guess this is something that I will have to ask the caterer lady, but I just wondered how that all worked. Like I said it will be a kid friendly wedding...but I just don't know how to count the kids when looking at food.

Next on the list is what about single people. I know that it's up to us if we put + guest, but at the same time if our caterer is a per person tab...if we invite a guest too then we are looking at extra money? I know I would hate to have to attend a wedding by myself but at the same time, the people that are single wouldn't actually be there by themselves...does that make sense? For example, my friend Janine...she would be alone (well she can have her son there) without a date, but she would have all of our co-workers and I plan on seating them all together. So the few people that are listed as singles would have their other friends there...making it a nonawkward situation for them.

Finally, how do you deal with the "obligation" invites...you know the people you feel like you have to invite because they have been your parents' friends for years? That's just an example, but how do you avoid the whole oh my gosh she didn't invite me kind of thing?

Here is the first thing that I am not looking forward to when it comes to planning...and this is just my side...Dave's side will be obnoxiously large (well maybe that's a stretch) plus all the people that aren't family that he will want to invite!

Seriously you girls will be tired of me talking about this in no time...consider this my version of a pregnancy haha!

3 comments:

misguidedmommy said...

i didnt account for kids really because unless they were over about 6 they really didnt eat. brandon would maybe take a few bites of my plate, codi nothing and lets be real kids go to weddings for cake right.

next if you dont put guest then you didnt put it and they should mingle with the people there. the thing you need to avoid doing is sitting a ton of single people together at one table making it obvious that they are single or outcasts. i think it is usually nicest to have a few single people spread out.

also just go ahead and invite the obligations, it saves hurt feelings plus its one more gift or card with a check for you.

back to the kid thing. it also kind of depends on what you are serving. if you are serving by plate, like premade plates brought to the table, most caterers have kid friendly plates for a lower cost. if you are serving a buffet then i would count two kids as one person. with buffets there is hardly anything left over but if there is you just send it home with people or, people keep eating as the night goes on.

also jen had the most amazing buffet caterer you need to ask her their names because their food was soo good i would come to the wedding just to eat their food again mmmm omg

Anonymous said...

It's nice that you are having a kid friendly wedding. One of my cousins was so rude and put "NO KIDS" on her invitation...handwritten no less. GHETTO. So my sister and I didn't go but it turns out all the other cousins our age went because they or their parents were in the wedding. My parents were pissed we couldn't go, we must have been 7 and 10 obviously not babies. SO I'm glad you won't be doing that.

Ask about special kids foods, places here in NYC have the typical chicken fingers and fries for the kids. Lower cost, more appetizing to them.

Your wedding invite who you want. I'm not a believer of invite all my parents friends...I dont' know them...their not invited. Just my two cents.

Good Luck! I'll never get tired of reading about wedding stuff so post away.

Jen said...

Yeah I didn't count kids either because they don't really eat. If it is a buffet-like situation they will just eat off their parent's plates. I didn't count kids and we STILL had tons of leftovers and my wedding.

I would NOT want to go to a wedding without a guest- but if you KNOW who they would bring, such as your friend who has a son then I would put the son's name specifically on the invite. Otherwise just address the invite to the friend and they will have other people there to hang out with. They'll be fine.

I also say send the obligation invites- but ONLY if they are someone who would for sure feel weird that they weren't invited. In a few cases I sent the obligation invites and the people didn't end up coming anyways- also a lot of the obligation invites for me were people who lived far away and wouldn't come anyways probably... But they do send gifts...

Umm... I can't remember what else you asked but I am sure I will have more to say...