Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana! The tricky task of deciding who does and doesn’t get a wedding invite

We are known for our big fat Indian weddings. Everything has to be larger than life—be it the wedding venue or the food—and all are taken care of months in advance. However, there is one aspect of weddings that is hardly talked about. Whether you believe it or not, deciding who gets or does not get invited to the wedding is a big task. Yes, preparing an invite list for the wedding can be very tricky. But here are a few steps that can help manage a fair guest list.

The best time to start making the invite list is as soon as the wedding date is fixed. The biggest mistake that most people commit is to wait till the last moment to finalise the list as a result of which they end up inviting too many people or leaving out important names.

This small step of categorizing the invite list helps to approach this otherwise tricky task in an organised way. The different categories can be family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, neighbours, etc. This will also make sure that you don’t miss any important names.

While preparing the wedding invite list, make sure to consult friends and family. They might help you remember people, whom you might have missed out.

It’s very important to fix the number of guests you want to invite for the wedding. Chances are that you would end up adding more names than your expected number. But at least, you would have an idea of where to stop.

The secret to a fool-proof wedding invite list is how often you keep editing it. Whenever you see that the number of people in the list is growing out of proportion, you need to edit it ruthlessly and bring it down. But make sure that you do not cut off those names immediately. Keep a separate list of those names.

When you invite a person to a wedding make sure you have an idea of his family so that you can have a rough estimate of people who might accompany the person to the wedding. This is very important because you might invite one person and he might turn up with a family of five!

Some people like maintaining excel sheets, which is actually very handy to make lists. Also, you can keep a note on your mobile phone, so that it allows you to add names whenever you come across one.

Before you send out the invites, make sure to discuss it with everyone in the family to ensure you haven’t missed out any important names.

(All images used here are representational)