THE LOVETTES (Lindsey) ~ The Guest List Challenge

Lovettes Lindsey Skinny Malink

JB and I are just back from our friends’ wedding in Mallorca, and a hoot was had by all! Standing at Son Marroig with the sun dazzling us on the sweep of the Med below, sniffling at the vows (in Spanish and English, yo), discovering Spanish wedding traditions – shouts of ‘¡Vivan los novios!’, frequent heckling of the bride and groom with shouts of ‘¡Que se besen!’, the father of the bride’s pidgin-Spanish speech, and a spectacular salsa for the first dance. Our heads were reeling taking it all in, it was the best day and we are so happy for Sarah and Fran. ¡VIVA!

Lovettes Lindsay-4

Lovettes Lindsay-5

Top image – Eugenie fern shoe clips by What Katy Did Next
Bottom image – from this wedding feature on Love My Dress (Images in Focus)

 

We’re also very excited ourselves, as we have just sent out our save the dates!! Lyndsay at  Skinny Malink has done such an amazing job of them, we loved working with her on the design process and we’re looking forward to doing the invitations and menus further down the line.

I have never been one to shy away from controversy; however I’ve hummed and hawed over this topic, wondering if writing about it might be akin to entering the lion’s den. I’m talking about *deep breath* the wedding guest list.

Lovettes Lindsey Skinny Malink

Wedding stationery designs by Skinny Malink

 

I’ll lay my cards on the table here – I thought I had this one down. We’ve always said we want to keep our wedding on the small-medium size (around 60 guests) and surround ourselves with people who are truly in our lives on the day. Also, as is my wont, I began wedding planning with a definite air of ‘no-one is budging us* on this stuff, it’s our day, it’s our decision and that’s that’, bolstered by previous experience of  friends’ weddings where the guest list chat has turned into a parent rammy (one of my favourites being the mother of the bride who thought the guest list was split into three – one section for the couple to pick, and the other two for the parents to pick – that was a fun conversation).

Two of our best friends, who recently celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary (hiya Yateses!), had the most beautiful, small, intimate ceremony on a small islet off their parents’ farm on Seil, followed by a larger party at the town hall. It was perfect. JB and I always thought we’d get married in Lewis, where my family is from, on the little beach at the bottom of my croft where we’ve spent long hours walking the dogs, waving at seals and wading in the surf, happiness embodied. The idea of having a shedload of people there seemed both wildly impractical and mildly terrifying, and we thought we’d follow in our pals’ footsteps with the small ceremony/big reception format.

Thereupon began the guest list debate.

dog walking on the beach

iPhone images taken by Lindsey and JB

 

‘It’s a long way for people to come only to be invited to the reception’, ‘But what about so and so? I’d like them to be there’, ‘I’m not sure such and such would be able to come to the beach, it would be too much for them’. My initial instinct was to dig my heels in and push on with our original idea, but we let all of our parents’ offerings on the subject sink in, and the longer we pondered it seemed like we should actually have a rethink. We then found Crear, and it seemed exactly the solution we were looking for, without even looking for it. A mere 2 hour drive away, we would take the whole place for three days, our nearest and dearest beach-folk would stay for the whole weekend, and we’d have all our guests there on the wedding day. Is that ‘Hurrah!’ I hear you say?

destination wedding

iPhone images taken by Lindsey and JB at their friends wedding in Mallorca

 

Introducing our new plans to all round approval was great, but then the murmurs began again. ‘Why are you inviting x but not y?’ came next, followed by ‘I would really like to invite my friends’, followed by my head exploding. PARENTS! Y U NO SSSHHH?

We looked again at our list over a sangria in Mallorca. We pondered. We had more sangria. I started to wonder, was I being resistant for resistance’s sake**? More sangria. We decided, y’know what, maybe a few more folk wouldn’t actually be such a bad thing.

Lovettes Lindsay-2

Lovettes Lindsay-3

Image sources:  tweedantler, heart balloons, notebook, Sea & Cake necklacedaisy bouquet

 

Since we started planning this wedding, countless people have offered me the same advice when it comes to guest lists – some things just aren’t worth falling out over. Turns out (despite my initial ‘I will not be pushed on anything’ stance) they’re right. Unreasonable commandeering aside, sometimes I think you just need to take a step back and get a little perspective on things.

So you don’t know your in-laws’ best friend, or your fifth cousin twice removed isn’t your favourite person: if they matter to someone who matters to you, maybe dig your heels out and consider changing your mind. For those who might be thinking ‘BUT! There must be a line drawn somewhere’, yes, there must. I just wonder if sometimes we might draw that line a little too quickly and too rigidly, and not crossing it becomes the objective, instead of making a balanced decision. My story is just that – mine, from my perspective, with full acceptance of alternatives and no judgement on others.

Lovettes Lindsay-1

Deer cake topper, from this feature on Love My Dress
Image Copyright (c) 2014, Gail Kelly Design & Photography

 

I’d love to hear from LMD readers who have their own guest list stories to share, be they horrifying or hilarious. *ducks*

Lindsey x

 

*me

**totes not in my nature at all *cough*

 

*me

**totes not in my nature at all (cough)

19 thoughts on “THE LOVETTES (Lindsey) ~ The Guest List Challenge

  1. Ooooh interesting and controversial topic! I’m with you Lindsey. We were initially planning a small – medium wedding like you. Our initial concern was around cost, we were planning to pay for everything ourselves and just couldn’t afford to include our parents friends/distant cousins. In fact I wasn’t really planning on inviting my aunts and uncles on my Dad’s side at all because I’m really not very close to them (how I thought I’d get away with that I’ll never know!) But then our parents very kindly offered to help us with the wedding expenses and we could suddenly afford to be a bit more relaxed about the guest list. I was still a bit reluctant about inviting complete randoms (well randoms to me because I’d never heard of them let alone met them!) but when we sat down and thought about it we decided it wasn’t really worth digging our heels in and upsetting people over. Although a wedding is completely about the couple it is also about the families too and weddings are rare occasions when everyone can get together to celebrate something lovely. The one thing we have stuck to our guns over is no children, my dad was really angling for me to invite my cousins children as they otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend but we apologised and explained that we really couldn’t – we have soooo many friends and family with young children that we wouldn’t have the space for them all and it didn’t seem fair to invite some and not others. Some people will never be happy though, despite us having agreed to let my Mother in Law to be invite numberous random cousins and friends she still recently described the wedding as being “some family but mainly friends”!

    1. Thank you Clare 🙂 this made me chuckle. It’s great to hear that I’m not alone in my deliberations on the subject. There really isn’t a right way or a wrong way to do things – I think if people kept this in mind there would be less needless fall-outs on the subject. We’ve stuck to our guns on the no children thing too (apart from my two bridesmaids who have tiny and wonderful daughters, and my brother who is about to have a baby – but they’re wedding party) as, aside from cost and space issues, I really don’t want loads of kids running about needing corralled. Thank you for your solidarity! 🙂 Lindsey Lovette x

      1. Ooh, we’re the same on the children front – having my bridesmaids children and my brother’s baby. Good luck with it all x

  2. We sat our parents down at the beginning, showed them our
    drafted guest list and asked if there was anyone missing.

    Obviously since then things have changed, some that were
    fine to be evening invites must now be day, but overall, it has not gone too
    badly.

    But I am with you, unless the people are people you actively
    dislike why worry. Your guests will often see more of each other than you see
    them, so if it adds to the general happiness it can only be a good thing.

    I was glad we had the discussion before we looked at venues, the family editions pushed us over capacity for a couple of places, so by discounting them before even looking we didn’t run the risk of having to battle to keep the list down having fallen in love with somewhere too small.

    1. That’s a great point re discussing the guest list before looking at venues. You can avoid the nightmare scenario of wanting 100 folk there but only being able to have 6 because your idiot other half has decided to plan a wedding in Vegas without your knowledge (I think I’ve been watching too much Don’t Tell the Bride :D). I think the reason I was resistant at first was because I’d heard some real guest list clangers from other people, so maybe part of me was worrying if we gave an inch we’d end up with a wedding twice the size we wanted. A room full of people staring at me slightly terrifies me! What has made the difference for us has been just taking the time to think about things before settling on something, rather than just making snap decisions which might have the potential to hurt feelings. Thanks for your comment 🙂 Lindsey Lovette x

      1. Oh I have heard some clangers too, and a friend also planning her wedding has had some real issues. so I can completely understand your trepidation.
        I think having a print out of our guest list with us when discussing it helped put it into context, when you have a list covering two sheets of A4 “just six more” can be seen as a bigger ask when added to an already relatively accommodating list.
        An estimate of cost per head helped too, do you really like Susan from three doors down enough for me to pay £100 for her to be there? Apparently not!

  3. Ah, The List. Indeed the most difficult part of a wedding. 6 months into planning and we are still tinkering with it. Lindsey, this is definitely a topic that wedders-to-be can relate to!
    We have been living in the UK for a year now, but are returning to Australia to get married. That made us think about not wanting to have The List be a snapshot of our lives in Australia immediately before moving, to the exclusion of the new life we’re building in London. How to avoid that happening is still unresolved, but short of doing a second wedding here we think we might do a newly-married party in London to include the new friends we’re making here. The clarity of distance has also meant we’ve put some people on the list who we agreed we didn’t make enough effort to see in recent years, but would like to let them know how much we think of them.

    We asked around our friends for advice on how they filtered down to their final list and have had some interesting suggestions: friends only, with parents each allowed 6 friends or family; immediate family and close friends only; 1/3 each to the bride and groom and the parents to split the remaining 1/3; or, only people that we as a couple would conisder going out dinner with. We’ve also come up with our own filters, including: people we still hope to be friends with in 10 years. But the most important one and the one that seemed to ring true for both of us, was that we only wanted people there who would genuinely be excited for us on the day. The idea of saying our vows – such a deeply personal and intimate thing to do – in front of people that barely know us just didn’t seem right.
    Good luck Lindsey and all others undertaking a task that requires the ultimate in diplomacy skills!

    1. Louise! I LOVE THIS! So many great suggestions on deciding who to invite, and the notion of letting people know how much you think of them, and inviting those who would be genuinely excited for you is perfect. I completely agree with you on saying your vow in front of people you barely know – it is such an intimate moment, and we really wanted to make sure we had everyone we love there before considering requests from parents. Our venue can take up to 100 people, but to me it’s not about filling the spaces, but about every person there meaning something to us. Good luck with your plans, a party in both hemispheres sounds amazing 🙂 Lindsey Lovette x

      1. Thanks Lindsey! I also think you make a good point about thinking of including people who matter to those who matter to you … I think our parents are actually far more excited about the idea of a ‘proper’ wedding celebration than we are, so we’re trying to keep that in mind too. x

  4. Love this! I’m totally with you Lindsey, and I’m so glad you’ve posted this. I appreciate all the “it’s your day, only invite the people you want there” but I’m not sure that’s always the most practical. I worked with our sets of parents, asked them for all their suggestions and then had an open discussion about people they wanted to invite. My Mum was really practical and took various people off because she could see that we didn’t have capacity and everyone on the list already were musts. I love how you put this: “if they matter to someone who matters to you, maybe dig your heels out and consider changing your mind.”. So true – I can’t imagine making my Mum unhappy because someone she feels she wants there (or in some cases also feels she SHOULD invite for various reasons and will feel/look bad if she doesn’t) but I refuse to invite them just because I can.

    Part of this I think is basically just all working together as a team and not seeing all requests from people other than you or your partner as Bad. I really feel for you and I’m so, so glad that you found a solution and a beautiful place to get married! 🙂

    1. Thanks Katie! It has actually been quite an enlightening experience for me. I’ve always seen my capability for stubbornness, but I’ve actually discovered a more zen-like approach through this whole process. Maybe it’ll be the making of me! 🙂 I’m glad this resonated with you, Lindsey Lovette x

  5. Hi again Lindsey! I am a fellow crear bride and thanks for this! I am currently in fair frenzy about the list too but only cause i didnt want any children at the wedding (kids to be arent part of a wedding to me its an adult affair) but asking people to go away for 3 days with us means we inevitably are having to widen the guest list to include them meaning with only 25-30 guests 5 of them will be children… I have felt so trapped by my ‘no kids’ thing and im now coming to terms with accepting it and making the most of it its really very easy to make your life hell when in actual fact we just want a relaxed happy wedding so bending on the guest list to make things easier surely is a good thing for us! I look forward to hearing all your other updates!

    1. Hi Lorraine! Yay for Crear brides 🙂 We are having only our closest family and my bridesmaids stay with us for the three days, so most of our guests will only be there for the wedding day. I totally get that having more people around for the full three days would mean you’d have to make concessions around kids, I’m sure it’s hard enough finding a babysitter for one night! I think it’s very easy to become trapped in a certain idea of how you see your wedding being, and if you have to deviate from that it can be hard to accept. I think you’re right though, coming to terms with these things and moving on is the way forward. I’ve heard so many people say they ended up getting upset over things that with hindsight were so unimportant, so I’m trying to bear that in mind at every step. Lindsey Lovette x

  6. Planning my wedding was going to be 25 folk max. and no children in Stockholm, it is now a 100+ affair with all the children (that’s just the day guests) in Edinburgh. The reason being we had an unexpected arrival in the form of our daughter 9 months following our engagement (go figure) so it’s not the day we set out to have but at least it will have the most important people there – my partner, my daughter and I …oh and over 100 other people

    1. Woah! Big changes! But what a lovely reason. In fact, when we were booking our venue they told us surprise babies are the number one reason for wedding changes. Edinburgh is such a beautiful city, I’m sure your day will be just perfect. Lindsey Lovette x

  7. Hey Lindsey – what a thoughtful post! I think you’ve handed your guest list beautifully (Sangria discussions are always the best!)! When we started planning our list it was a full-fat (for us) 95, but after a lot of deliberation we’ve trimmed it to 60 and couldn’t be happier. But that’s just us..! I think the most important thing is just to take time to go through your options and work out where you want to be flexible and what will bring you the most peace of mind. It’s fantastic to hear how it’s all working out for you, and you have done a wonderful job of your Save the Dates! Can’t wait to see the invites and menus further down the line! ~ Madeleine xx

    1. Thanks Madeleine! Not long to go for you now, eep! Really looking forward to reading your next post xx Lindsey Lovette

  8. 10 months to go today and we’re still without a finalised guest list. We started out with a limit of 150 but we’ve currently got 170 “must haves” (this is all my fault, I’ve always been a social buttefly and have quite a few totally separate groups of friends). We are really lucky though, as my mum and dad are paying for most of it, and my dad has taken the view that a few more extra people aren’t worth falling out over. I take the view that if they aren’t “my” guests, I won’t go out of my way to spend loads of time with them on the day – hopefully this will free me up for my favourites!We’re hoping for a few non-attendees by not saving out save the dates (but telling our key people when it is, of course), and the faithful “no children” rule!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Close
Top