Organizing a wedding can either be a pleasure or a curse, depending on your outlook. It’s not a simple endeavor, by any means. The process is made even more difficult when faced with the prospect of writing up the guest list.
There can only be so many seats at the table, after all, and some people are going to react poorly if they’re not invited. Navigating the minefield of your social circle requires careful consideration while planning the perfect wedding guest list, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
Read on for some helpful tips that might help the process along, or at least help you find the right perspective for the task at hand.
Who to Include on Your Wedding Guest List
Your wedding is your special day, and if there was ever an opportunity not to invite people you don’t like to a social event and get away with it, this is it. If only it were that simple. Unfortunately, social ties are somewhat more complicated than that, and we’re cursed to imagine how our decisions in the present are likely to impact the future.
This is the difficulty of walking the fine line of the wedding list. The people you don’t want to invite most of all may well be some of your closest family. In which case, omitting them from the guest list might not work out as a net positive in the long run, despite how drastically their absence would improve the big day.
Also, it’s selfish to exclude people in the end. Weddings should be a joyous occasion for everyone involved, not just for the bride and groom. Just because you don’t appreciate the presence of somebody doesn’t mean they aren’t good friends with others in attendance and might be missed by them.
The more thought you give to the tangled web of invitees, the worse the problem seems to get. Whatever your strategy, it seems as if a concession will have to be made somewhere or other. The trick is working out where, and which strategy most closely resembles an egalitarian viewpoint, or at least one that could be convincingly argued as such.
The Hard Line
Tying the knot surrounded by friends and family either conjures images of bliss and happiness or uncomfortable, barely concealed tension. Nobody wants to walk on eggshells as they stroll down the aisle, but nobody wants to return to their daily lives as a pariah, either. It’s worth trying to weigh the damage of not inviting certain people to the wedding ceremony beforehand because you might find damage control after the fact to be all but impossible.
However, there’s a time and a place for putting up with the people you can’t stand in your life, and one side of the argument is that your wedding is not that day. Rather than agonize over the intricacies of your guest list, it’s possible to decide simply not to care and let the chips fall as they may.
Doing the Unthinkable
If you don’t want to invite someone, don’t. You’re perfectly within your rights, and if feelings get hurt, so be it. Prioritizing your happiness is important occasionally, and to hell with anyone who feels otherwise.
This strategy is particularly effective for people who are sick to death of accommodating and compromise. In day-to-day life, it pays to act a little because the price of doing so is so much easier to shoulder than the fallout of telling people exactly what you think of them. A wedding is supposed to be a day where love triumphs, and pretending to like your guests seems counterintuitive to the vision of the day as a whole.
A Softer Approach
If love is to triumph, nothing ought to be able to get in the way of it. Not even a predictably drunken and obstinate uncle or a sister whose face is a mask of contempt. Pure and unabiding love is immune to such things, and so long as you’re side by side with the person you love, who cares about anything else?
This approach requires a certain call to abandon that might not come easily at first. If you’ve imagined your wedding to be a perfect affair, and have taken great pains to make sure the daffodils are arranged in bunches of no less than five and no more than seven, it may be time to relinquish control and feel the benefit of it.
A Helpful Perspective
Ultimately, a wedding isn’t about the bells and whistles. It’s not about the cake, or the balloons, or the shade of the color of the fabric of the tablecloths. To follow this line of reasoning to a useful conclusion, it’s also not about anyone else other than the person you’re declaring your undying love for.
To this end, your guests can be ignored. Practice your magnanimity, and invite anyone who wants to come. If they’re people you hate or otherwise dislike, try to see the funny side.
Alternatively, you can always call in the professionals. Weddings often become overly complicated affairs and can become a source of anxiety, especially for the bride and groom. With the help of some hardened wedding planning veterans on hand such as Pacific Northwest weddings, there’s no cause for undue worry.
Professionals have seen it all before, and know all too well how to navigate social gatherings. At the very least, they’ll be able to help you seat people in your wedding venue to best minimize the chances of a brawl breaking out.
A Small Affair
If the thought of writing up a wedding guest list is too much to bear in the end, don’t bother. There’s a lot to be said for getting married privately. Invite only your closest friends and family, or have no ceremony at all.
In the end, all that matters is you’re together with the person you love. All that’s necessary is the signing of a contract, and that can be done without letting anybody know at all. In some ways, privacy where love is concerned makes it all the sweeter.
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