Published Mar 27, 2010

I have a lot of friends getting married this year, which is pretty awesome. Now, the wife, DJ L’il Bit, and I planned two weddings in 14 weeks — we each were in charge of one — so I’d be happy to give you some advice on yours. Don’t worry, our weddings went really, really well, and were cheap too, so this’ll be pretty painless.

Part the first here is the invite list. Make two lists, your A and B list. In the A list, put everyone who must be there — the very best friends, the family you need to have, people like that. Your goal is to progressively invite more and more people until the venue is full, but never put yourself in the position of having to un-invite somebody because you ran out of room.

In furtherance of this goal, only send out save-the-dates to the A list. We learned this tip the hard way, almost having to un-invite a dozen people when there was a seating hiccup at one of our weddings. (Fortunately, they figured out a way to fit everyone.)

Save money on save-the-dates by grabbing a little clip art, a fancy font, some colored paper, and making everything in Word. Everybody under 45 will just put the event in the Blackberry or iPhone and throw out what you send them, anyway, while everybody over 45 on your list would treasure it even if it were scribbled on the back of an envelope. We did this and ended up spending less on all of our save-the-dates, including postage, than most people do on just their envelopes.

Then, go ahead and invite your A list. When the seating’s finalized, go ahead and invite the B list. You do need to push your venue on seating, when we asked our venue how many they could fit they gave me one number, but when we came back and asked when they’d last fit that many people, they came up with a lower capacity number. If there’s any ambiguity, get the dimensions of the tables and go over there with a tape measure. (We did that for a venue we were so close to using that we actually had the contract in hand… and we couldn’t fit everyone. So make sure to do it yourself!)

While you’re on that list, make sure to specify who gets a +1 and who doesn’t. Don’t forget the +1s in your count! Also, don’t forget:

  • You and your future spouse
  • The bridal party
  • The officiant
  • Having a good time!!!

That’s right, what with all of these details, make sure to have as much of a good time! It’s your wedding! Par-tay! And, also, compared to what you’ve got coming, this is small fry.