Planning your Wedding Invitations
Your wedding guest lists and invitations is another important thing to do once you have a date set in writing and all legal issues sorted. You are most likely inviting family and friends to your wedding event and putting a list together is the first step.
The number of guests has to be thought out before organizing the venue and the wedding cake. You invited 100 people, but your wedding venue can only seat 75, of course booking the venue and a date is not easy to do, so having a number of guests will give you a general idea what size venue you want.
You need to be able to go to your cake maker and tell them a number of guests so they can prepare a cake for that many persons. You want your cake big enough that every guest at your wedding event gets a piece of cake.
The Guest List
The family comes first on both sides, and this is a delicate matter to every family. Both sets of parents will want parts if not all there family side at the event. Consult both sets of parents and ask who they would want to invite to the wedding. Families are big with cousins, uncles, grandmothers and then all the children and even children’s children! Some good family planning will make a difference on finance and the size of venue and cake you need. Best way is to have an A list and a B list of people you want to invite, add to the list from both sets of parents and then break it down the best way you can, always consulting with both parents. Your B list comes in handy if you get refusals or people who can’t make it.
Sending Your Wedding invitations
It’s a good idea to get your wedding invitations sent out at least 7 to 12 weeks before the wedding event. You also have to consider that because your wedding is in Ibiza, then you will need to allow more time for guests to book flights. If you are getting married in peak season on Ibiza then you need to make sure your guests can get to the wedding because of flight availability, flights to Ibiza during peak season do get booked up fast. Also if you are not organizing accommodation for your guest they will need to find places to stay, this also can become a problem during peak season on Ibiza. You are getting married in Ibiza and you need to try and help all your guests find accommodation, try to be as helpful as possible to make attending your wedding as easy as possible and stress free. This could be one part of your invitation a small guide on where the venue is with a map and some hotels in that area. If you are organizing all the accommodation then you have no worries, all you need to do is give them the name and location of the accommodation. Ibiza is fairly easy to get a taxi from the airport.
Guests Invitation requirements
Dietary details is good information to have from your guests with a RSVP deadline. You may have X amount of vegetarians and other dietary requirements that you may need to let your catering company know about.
A gift list is also becoming protocol and makes life easier, mentioning a gift list is not really polite, but because you are getting married abroad it can be very practical for all.
Wedding seating plan
A big challenge for your wedding day is the seating plan, you will want everyone to get along. For the guests who are coming alone and don’t know many people, you would want to seat them next to people who are more sociable, that will help them feel more welcome and involved.
The top table is the table normally you follow tradition with both sets of parents, your best man and chief bridesmaid.
The top table will probably already set by the venue, who probably already know where the best table in the house is. You may want to speak to your venue and ask where that table is, also you might want to know how big the tables are, maybe each table seats 4, or maybe tables are pushed together. Some venues it is not possible to put all the tables together.
Ask your wedding venue for a plan of the seating area, this will help you decide who sits where.
You may want to put together a nice poster display of where people are sitting, as you wouldn’t want everyone wondering around the tables looking for their name on the seat or table. Giving people seat numbers is also another option, which stops people rushing for the best seat.
Planning
• Work out your guest list well in advance
• Get a venue/restaurant layout from your wedding reception venue early so you are clear on table sizes, no. of seats etc.)
• Set your RSVP date a month or more before the wedding
• Keep an RSVP list on an excel spreadsheet for easy management and not on paper that can be easily lost.
• Go through the RSVP list and check that everyone is accounted for – those attending and not attending and get firm answers from everyone at least 3 weeks before.
• Keep communication with your wedding venue open and clear – when they need the table plan by, what are penalties for more people attending and not attending.
Glossary
RSVP is a request for a response from the invited person or people