Managing your couples’ guests without losing your evenings

The guest list is the grey area of the job. It isn’t yours: the couple decides who to invite, and it’s up to them to chase their aunt. But all its consequences land with you. The number of covers, dietary needs, high chairs, shuttles, rooms, the seating plan.

The temptation is to take it all over, and that’s how you end up chasing cousins you’ve never met on a Sunday evening. The right approach is to set the framework, then let the couple and their guests fill it in.

Set the framework in the first month

1. The RSVP deadlineAround six weeks before. It should leave three weeks before numbers go to the caterer, for reminders and the seating plan.
2. The information to collectAttendance per person, adults and children, dietary needs and allergies, shuttle, accommodation. Decide it together, once, before the invitations go out.
3. A single channelEvery reply arrives in the same place. No “we told your mum”, no texts to the couple that someone has to copy out.
4. Who chases whomThe couple chases their own people; you give them the list of silent households and the right moment to do it.

A single source of truth

The problem is never the number of guests, it’s the number of places they’re written down. The couple’s spreadsheet, the Google Form, the texts, the groom’s mother’s list, your notes. Three weeks before the wedding, nobody knows which number is right.

A guest page where each household replies for all its members solves the problem at the source: the reply is entered once, by the person who knows it, and lands directly in the table you check. The couple sees the same numbers as you, at the same time.

Giving reliable numbers

The caterer doesn’t need the guest list: they need numbers, organised like their service. Adults and children, each dietary requirement, and above all how they’re split by table, so the vegetarian plate reaches the right place without the waiter having to ask.

• The total of adults, children with their age bracket, and suppliers to feed
• The number of each dietary requirement and allergy, with the name of the person concerned
• The split by table, once the seating plan is done
• High chairs, booster seats, guests with reduced mobility

Last-minute changes

There will be some. A guest falls ill, a couple brings their baby after all, a friend flies in from abroad against all odds. Route them through the same channel as the other replies instead of refusing them on principle, so the number stays right.

And explain to the couple from the start what happens once numbers are sent: an addition is often charged at full price, a cancellation is usually still charged. A rule known in advance avoids a tense conversation in the last week.

On the day, the seating plan in their pocket

The last step in managing guests is seating them. A seating plan on the wedding page, where each guest types their name and sees their table, takes the pressure off the board at the entrance and spares you half an hour of “which table am I on?” at dinner time.