Which has been more difficult - managing the guest list or the budget?

Both have not been easy, but the budget I think wins for me. No matter the size of the wedding; there's always going to be more you want to do than realistically can be done.

Definitely managing the guest list!!

Both have been so annoying for me. They both play off each other, so with our guest list increasing (thanks to FH), and our budget increasing because the guest list is increasing, I'm getting nervous that things might be getting out of hand. I'm honestly just hoping that not everyone says "yes" to coming lol.

I think the budget has been more challenging. My fiancé and I had a rough idea of who we'd invite to our wedding before we got engaged so after we did, we just had to iron it out. So far we've done well in terms of sticking to our budget, though.

Budget for us! Budget affected the amount of guests etc.

Probably Guest List for me, although it is heavily related to our budget lol

View quoted message Yeah...we wanted a $20,000 too, but just the venue and food is going to cost us close to $18,000!! Stay strong! And remember, people usually give monetary gifts nowadays. That's what's getting me by anyway 😂

View quoted message We are having the exact same problem! Our venue holds 135 (including ourselves and the 4 vendors we're feeding), but we invited 141 because my in-laws feel like every single blood relatice should be invited! However, we have already had 7 people say they can't come and I expect about 5-10 more people to say no, so just keep in mind that about 10% of your guests won't be able to come

So if you invite a few extra, you're probably okay.

They definitely go hand and hand a lot but I definitely had a harder time with the guest list.

I think budget was harder than guest list for us.

Guest list for sure! We have a maximum seating of 130 but i have a massive, very close knit family and am having a hard time cutting back the numbers. We are 127 people and that's only by inviting family, and only as high up as first cousins. Only the married or engaged ones get a plus one, and we havebt gotten to invite any friends so far!

They're both equally difficult for me, because they are so intertwined! We originally wanted a wedding with 100 people or less. When we sat down and did our original list, it was over 450 people (lots of family we have to invite, and we had more friends than we realized!). We finally cut it down to 230 people - we expect about 175 to actually come (the rest are unable/unwilling to travel, or just part of the 5-10% that likely will RSVP no). So although we're glad that we have cut it down by 68%, it's still much larger than we planned!

But that guest list has led to having to be VERY strict with our budget, and finding ways to make it go farther than I thought it could. Instead of having 10-12 tables to decorate, I have 25. Instead of having 100 people to feed, I have 175. And our budget hasn't gone up! I'm managing, but it's causing a lot of stress and taking a lot of time as I search for alternatives, buy things second hand and DIY a lot of it!

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100% Agree!

How in the world do you not invite people and not hurt their feelings. This is my biggest problem right now lol!

Probably the budget - although both are almost equal. With the guest list it has been difficult and all and we still don't have the emails and addresses but at least with that we have an idea of what needs to be done to get where we want to be. When it comes to the budget we want to stay low but most vendors are way too expensive for our ideal $20,000.00 budget.

Oh my! I think it's pretty even.

We would really like to keep everything small and intimate, but how do you choose which friends/family members should be cut? This is obviously supposed to be a special day for us and I don't want anyone hurt or angry for not being invited.

As for the budget, that increases everyday

So far, the budget! We got in a tight spot as I’ve been out of work for a month and a half this year so our savings are small. Thankfully we have a lot of help and over a year left to save.

Both were fairly equal and turned out to be pretty simple. We had fewer guests attend than we had anticipated (lots of out of town guests) so that decreased the amount on food which made coming in under budget so much easier!

Rather than the budget and guest list being difficult, it was the complete opposite. The guest list decreased and the budget was lower than expected in every aspect.

Budget. The nickel-ing and dime-ing of the taxes, fees, small items... they are all adding up quite quickly. Then I forget about tips on the day... and smaller decor items for here and there.

Our guest list barely hit 130, and then we did a big cut down to almost 100. Right now we are hovering (incl Bride & Groom) at 108. I found that we really sat down and hashed out the core guest list super early... so that we had no stress or time constraint to do our edits before final invites went out.

I'd say both because they're related in our case. We budgeted for a certain number of people, but our guest list surpassed that relatively quickly. We refused to invite more than we budgeted for, but it led to some difficult conversations with our parents. Additionally, we've gotten a few random +2s and +3s, which has led to more difficult conversations.

Guest list. It was really time consuming and there are people I would have preferred not to invite but had to because they are immediate family lol.