Inviting Guests and Planning a Wedding Venue (Wedding Series: Part 2 of 6)

Are you planning on having a large, medium-sized, or a small wedding? Unless you’re planning on eloping, you will probably have guests. Here are some tips on organizing the social side of your wedding:

Step 1: What Size Wedding do you Want?

Are you going to have a large wedding, where everyone you know will be invited, or are you planning on having a small, intimate wedding, where only a few people show up? You can’t plan this on your own. You need to talk to your fiancé about this.

You will need to figure out the wedding size early. Knowing how many people will attend will help you get the right venue, and budget out the price. Follow these three steps to help you figure out your list and narrow it down:

• Talk to your fiancé about how many people you want to come
• Work together to create a complete list of people you want to come
• Figure out how many will show up
  • As a general rule:
    • 85% of local guests show up
    • 55% of out of town guests
    • 35% of destination wedding guests
• Make sure everyone can attend
  • Nobody has something else that might interfere
    • Surgeries/disabilities
    • Birthdays/religious holidays
    • Families with newborns

Step 2: Choose the Date

Choosing a date for a wedding is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly. What day determines who can and can’t come, which day all of your future anniversaries will be on, which wedding venues will be available, and what you can do with your honeymoon.

Make your wedding date both functional and sentimental. You can make it something important for you and your fiancé (perhaps a first date, date of engagement, etc.), but at the same time, try to make it work with your wedding. Think about the time of year, climate in the place you’re getting married, etc. You might not want to get married during the wet season of the year, or you won’t want an outdoor wedding in the middle of winter (in a snowy location).

Don’t only think about the wedding day, also think about the honeymoon. It doesn’t matter if you’re taking a cruise, or flying out to one of your favorite places, make certain that the weather and climate will cooperate. While you can’t predict weather exactly, you can look at previous years’ weather at the same time of year.

After you have scheduled your wedding date, take the time to also schedule your wedding shower. This should typically be between two weeks and two months before the wedding. Be sure to choose it based on how it can accommodate as many guests as possible. You can wait to schedule it until after the RSVP date.

Step 3: Find a Venue

Most people get married somewhere special and fun. However, in addition to whether or not it is cool, there are some other factors you need to consider:

Reception:

Do you want your ceremony and reception to be in the same place or different places? Depending on your answer, you may have to arrange for transportation, multiple venues, etc.

Location:

This was mentioned in Part 1 of our wedding series, under the budget section.

Parking and Transportation:

Make sure that your venue has enough parking space for everyone. The last thing you want is for your guests to have to park blocks away and to have to walk to your venue.

You also want to arrange transportation well in advance. If you are planning on renting a limo or old car to show up (as many people do), make certain that you can rent them ahead of time (and that you can ensure that it will be on time).

Vendors:

You’ll want to make certain that your vendors are nearby, or can show up in advance. Some venues even offer their own vendors (especially for food and beverages).

Layout:

Will the venue be large enough for everyone, and will it work well for your wedding? If you’re going

to have a videographer bring them with you to the location that you are thinking about using, and have them say what they think about it. You don’t want bad wedding day photos because of your venue.

Also consider seating. Seating is a very difficult thing to arrange, with many rules if you’re going to have a traditional wedding. I’ll cover seating in a later article.

Tip: Many sites are scheduled a year or two in advance. If you want to get the site you want, reserve well in advance.

Step 4: Send Out Invitations

After you have decided on the date and the venue, send out your invitations. Invitations have a lot of parts to them. You first of all need to have the date, the time, and the location. Then you need the RSVP date. These are all vital parts of your invitation.

Invitations are traditionally handwritten by the groom (or bride). Some also get them professionally handwritten, or engraved. Unless you choose to handwrite it, know that it will be expensive. If you want to have your own custom-printed invitations, try using minted.com. They have custom-printed invitations, such as these.

Be sure to subscribe to planandorganize.com for more parts of this series. Have a happy wedding!