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Wedding guest list

How to cut down your wedding guest list

Cut rules, not names. Pick one rule, apply it to everybody on both sides, and take whole circles off in a single move — a 214-seat list against a 150-seat room comes down to 146 in five cuts, and not one of them is a decision about a particular person. The alternative, going down the list looking for the twelve people you can most afford to lose, recovers a fraction of the seats and costs you a conversation with every one of them, because a name cut on its own is a ranking and everybody in that circle can read it. Below is that whole list tiered A, B and C, the five cuts worked out seat by seat, the rules that make each cut sayable out loud, and a builder that takes a tier off and tells you what it gave back.

Build my guest list →Browse the worked cuts
How far over are you?

The right cut depends entirely on the size of the gap

Find the row that matches your number and stop. The mistake this page exists to prevent is running a small-gap fix on a large-gap problem — trimming plus-ones when you are sixty seats over means you will still be forty over two weeks later, having already spent the goodwill.

1

You are fewer than ten seats over

Tighten one whole-list rule rather than cut a circle. At this size a rule is worth more than a layer and costs nobody an invitation they were expecting. Narrowing the partner standard to married, engaged or living together is usually the biggest single lever on a list this close, because it applies to every circle at once. Nothing comes off the sheet; the seats simply stop being spoken for.

2

You are twenty to sixty seats over

Take Tier C off whole, in one move. This is the gap the tier system is built for. Rank every circle A, B or C first, then switch C off as one decision — six circles at once, made once. Picking the smallest names out of five different circles recovers roughly a quarter as many seats and leaves five circles that can see who else got an invitation.

3

You are more than a third over the room

The rule that built the list is wrong, not the list. No amount of trimming closes a gap that size without cutting into the people you cannot cut. Change a structural rule instead — no children, no coworkers, no partner unless the relationship meets one stated bar — or change the room. Both are honest; picking eighty names off one at a time is not, and it will take you six weeks.

4

The only cuts left are inside a circle you have half-invited

Put the circle back together, then decide it whole. A half-invited circle is not a saving, it is a split you have not been told about yet. Restore everybody in it, then take the whole circle or keep the whole circle. If neither fits, the seats have to come from a different circle — that is the constraint doing its job, not you failing to be decisive.

5

The two of you disagree about the same fifteen names

Tier the same list separately, then cut only the overlap. Each of you assigns A, B and C to the full list without seeing the other's answers. Everything you both put in C comes off with no discussion at all, which is usually most of the gap. What is left is a short, specific conversation about a handful of households instead of an open-ended argument about the whole list.

One number has to be right before any of this works: how many invitations the room is worth. Seats are not invitations, and the gap between them is worked out on the wedding attendance rate page — its answer is the capacity number the builder below takes. And if the seats under pressure are the ones your parents want to spend, the cut is not yours to make alone: split the seats between the families first, then cut inside each number.

Before you cut anything

📊 Rank the whole list first, in three tiers

You cannot cut a list you have not ranked; you can only argue about it. These five passes are one invented wedding — 214 invited seats against a room that holds 150 — sorted the way the builder holds it, by circle rather than by person. Copy any of them and swap the numbers for your own.

Example 01

THE LIST AT 214, AND THE ROOM AT 150 Immediate family, both sides · 14 Grandparents · 6 Aunts and uncles · 18 First cousins and their partners · 26 Second cousins · 12 Parents' friends · 24 Wedding party and their partners · 16 Close friends and their partners · 22 College friends and their partners · 20 Childhood friends · 8 Coworkers · 18 One boss and two team leads · 4 Neighbors · 6 Children under 18 · 20 — 214 invited, 150 in the room, 64 over. Every line is a circle rather than a person, and this is the only view of the list you can cut from without arguing about anybody by name.

214 against 150Personalize
Example 02

TIER A — no wedding without them · 58 seats Immediate family, both sides · 14 Grandparents · 6 Wedding party and their partners · 16 Close friends and their partners · 22 — 58 of 150, and 92 seats still to spend. Write this tier first and do not touch it again. If your Tier A alone is over the room, the room is the problem and no amount of cutting will fix it.

Tier A — 58 seatsPersonalize
Example 03

TIER B — you want them there · 88 seats Aunts and uncles · 18 First cousins and their partners · 26 Parents' friends · 24 College friends and their partners · 20 — A + B = 146. Four seats under the room, before Tier C has been touched at all. This is where the cut actually finishes: everything below this line is an argument you no longer have to have.

A + B fits at 146Personalize
Example 04

TIER C — only if there is room · 68 seats Second cousins · 12 Childhood friends · 8 Coworkers · 18 One boss and two team leads · 4 Neighbors · 6 Children under 18 · 20 — 68 seats, six whole circles, one toggle. Taking Tier C off is a single decision made once in daylight, not 68 decisions made at eleven at night, and it is the only version of this you can explain to somebody afterwards.

Tier C — 68 seatsPersonalize
Example 05

TIER THE SAME LIST TWICE, SEPARATELY Your pass · A 58 · B 88 · C 68 Their pass · A 62 · B 79 · C 73 Both of you put in C · 61 seats — these come off with no conversation In one person's C and the other's B · 19 seats — The disagreement was never about the list. It is 19 seats long, it involves a handful of households, and it is the only part of the cut that needs the two of you in the same room.

Two passes, one listPersonalize

The cut only counts once it is written down somewhere

A list you cut in your head gets re-cut every time somebody asks, and then gets retyped from memory — once for the invitations, once for the people who never replied. Build it once here, download the file, and every version after that is a copy instead of a fresh argument.

Open the builder →
The cut, worked

✂️ Five cuts that take 214 down to 146

Each pass removes one whole circle, reports what it gave back, and comes with the sentence you say when somebody asks. Run them in order and stop the moment you fit — the sixth cut you make after you already fit is the one you regret.

Example 06

CUT 1 · SECOND COUSINS, WHOLE CIRCLE Before · 214 invited · 64 over Off · second cousins · 12 seats After · 202 invited · 52 over Say it as: "we stopped at first cousins on both sides." — The boundary is a generation, so nobody inside it is being ranked against anybody else. This is the cheapest cut on almost every list because the circle is large, distant and symmetrical across both families.

12 seats backPersonalize
Example 07

CUT 2 · WORK, ALL OF IT Before · 202 invited · 52 over Off · coworkers 18 + one boss and two team leads 4 · 22 seats After · 180 invited · 30 over Say it as: "we didn't invite anyone from either of our workplaces — it was going to be half the office or none of it." — The biggest single circle on most lists and the one nobody has to be told twice. Cutting the whole workplace is a policy; cutting four of eighteen is a seating chart everyone at work can see.

22 seats backPersonalize
Example 08

CUT 3 · NEIGHBORS Before · 180 invited · 30 over Off · neighbors · 6 seats After · 174 invited · 24 over Say it as: "we kept it to family and the friends we'd travel for." — A small circle, but a clean one: proximity is not a relationship, and it is the only circle on the list whose members will all find out on the day whether or not you tell them.

6 seats backPersonalize
Example 09

CUT 4 · FRIENDS WE HAVEN'T SEEN IN TWO YEARS Before · 174 invited · 24 over Off · childhood friends · 8 seats After · 166 invited · 16 over Say it as nothing at all — this circle does not ask, because the relationship is already at this distance. — The rule is a date, not a judgment, and it is applied to every friend circle on both sides in one pass. That is what keeps it a boundary: the test decided who is in it, you did not.

8 seats backPersonalize
Example 10

CUT 5 · CHILDREN UNDER 18 Before · 166 invited · 16 over Off · children under 18 · 20 seats After · 146 invited · 4 seats spare — stop here Say it as: "the ceremony and dinner are for adults." Say it early, say it to every family at once, and put it on the invitation rather than in a conversation. — The single biggest lever on most lists, and the only cut here that changes whether some households can come at all. Which is exactly why it is decided once, for everybody, before anything is printed.

20 seats backPersonalize
Example 11

THE CUT THAT DOES NOT WORK Off · 3 of 7 first cousins · 6 seats Off · 4 of 18 coworkers · 5 seats Off · 2 of 6 aunts and uncles · 2 seats Off · 1 of 4 childhood friend households · 2 seats Off · 1 of 12 parents' friend households · 2 seats — 17 seats recovered, still 47 over, and five circles now contain somebody who can see who else got an invitation. Same evening's work as cut one, a fifth of the result, and five conversations you cannot win.

The cut that backfiresPersonalize
The part you say out loud

📣 One rule, applied to everybody

A rule applied to the whole list creates a new boundary, and a boundary can be repeated to anyone who asks. That is the difference between a rule and a preference: the rule decides who is inside it, so you are not the one doing the choosing. These five are written to be forwarded, printed or read out.

Example 12

ONE PARTNER STANDARD, APPLIED 214 TIMES Rule: a partner is on the list if they are married to, engaged to, or living with our guest. Applies to: every circle, both families, no exceptions Guests attending on their own under this rule: 22 The looser version — everyone brings someone — puts this same list at 236 against a room of 150. — 22 seats, one sentence, zero individual decisions. Whatever standard you pick, the only thing that matters is that it is one standard and that both families heard it in the same words.

One partner standardPersonalize
Example 13

ONE CHILDREN POLICY, WITH THE EXCEPTION NAMED Rule: the ceremony and the dinner are for adults. The only children there are the two in the wedding party. Children on the list before · 20 seats Children on the list after · 2 seats Recovered · 18 seats — A softer version of cut five: 18 seats instead of 20, and the exception is a ROLE rather than a family, so no household can read it as being about them. An exception that is a job nobody can be offended by is the only kind worth making.

One children policyPersonalize
Example 14

THE SAME RULE, RUN ON BOTH SIDES Rule: family stops at first cousins. — your side · 9 seats off · their side · 3 seats off Rule: nobody from either workplace. — your side · 16 seats off · their side · 6 seats off Total · 34 seats, 25 of them from your side — The rule matched. The numbers never will, and they do not have to. Cutting your own list further to level the count means losing real relatives to a symmetry nobody outside the two of you will ever measure.

Both sides, one rulePersonalize
Example 15

"We're at 150 and the two families alone came to more than that, so we drew one line and applied it to everybody: family stops at first cousins, nobody from work, and no children. It cost us people we'd have loved to have there, and you're one of them. I'm sorry — I wanted you to hear it from me rather than notice." — One rule, three consequences, no rankings, and no maybe. Said once, to the person themselves, before anything arrives in the mail.

When someone asksPersonalize
Example 16

THE PAGE YOU HAND BOTH SETS OF PARENTS THE RULES, IN THE ORDER WE APPLIED THEM 1. The room holds 150. Nothing below this line changes that number. 2. Family stops at first cousins, both sides. (−12) 3. Nobody from either of our workplaces. (−22) 4. Nobody we know only from the street. (−6) 5. Friends we have both seen in the last two years. (−8) 6. No children under 18. (−20) 7. A partner is invited when they are married to, engaged to, or living with our guest. Result · 146 invited · 4 seats spare — Printed and handed over, this ends the conversation. Explained verbally, it restarts it every two weeks, one name at a time, usually on a Sunday.

The rules, printedPersonalize
Person, layer, or list?

A cut is a whole-list decision. Most arguments start by forgetting that

This is the clearest whole-list page in the cluster: capacity is a property of the list, not of anybody on it. Every rule below is either about the list as a whole, a single layer inside it, one named person, or a bucket somebody else is spending — and applying one at the wrong level is what turns a two-hour job into a six-week negotiation.

1

The invited list cannot go over 150

The whole list · The list as a whole. Enforced person by person it becomes weeks of trading names between two families; enforced by circle it is a handful of decisions that hold.

2

Nobody gets a partner invited unless they are married, engaged or living together

The whole list · The list as a whole. Applied guest by guest it is a series of favors, and the first person you make an exception for sets the real standard for everyone after them.

3

No children under 18

The whole list · The list as a whole. One family's children on the list and another's not is not a policy, it is a verdict on one of the families, and it is the version everybody remembers.

4

Family stops at first cousins on both sides

A whole layer · Every household in the circle. Trimmed to the cousins you see least it stops being a boundary and becomes a ranking, which is the one reason you cannot say out loud.

5

We are not inviting Ryan from work

One person · One named individual. Dressed up as a work policy it quietly cuts eighteen colleagues you were happy to have there, and everyone on the team knows which decision it really was.

6

Each set of parents gets 20 of the 150

An allocation · Each contributor's bucket. Left unstated, every name a parent adds during the cut reads as a seat taken from your own friends, and the arithmetic is never visible to the person adding it.

Cutting is a whole-list decision, and three of the numbers it leans on are settled elsewhere. The room gives you seats, but the list is measured in invitations, and turning one into the other is what the wedding attendance rate works out — its answer is exactly the capacity number the builder above takes. Whether a partner is a seat at all is the plus-one rules, the wording for a child-free decision belongs with adults-only invitation wording, and if a circle you cut might be invited later, that timing sits with second-wave invitations rather than here — tiering to cut and tiering to mail are two different jobs. What every uncut name actually costs is the cutting argument nobody makes out loud, and the bar half of it is priced here. Once the list stops moving, collecting their numbers is the next job — this builder never asks for one.

Wedding guest list rules

Six rules that survive a family group chat

None of these are etiquette in the manners sense. They are the rules that stop a cut from being reopened, which is the only thing that makes a cut worth making.

1

Cut circles, not names

One circle off is one decision you can repeat to anybody who asks. Twelve names off five circles is twelve decisions, none of which you can explain without ranking somebody against their own cousin.

2

Decide the rule before you look at the list

A rule written while staring at a specific person is a rationalization, and everyone can hear the difference. Set the standard first, then run it, then read the result — even when the result is somebody you would rather have kept.

3

Stop the moment you fit

The list that lands four seats under the room is finished. Every cut after that is free damage, and the seats you clawed back will be spent by whoever asks you last.

4

Never cut somebody who has already been told they are invited

The moment it has been said out loud, it is a promise rather than a plan. Find the seats somewhere else. This is the one rule on the page with no exception and no arithmetic behind it.

5

One exception ends the rule

The first exception is the new boundary, and everybody in that circle will learn about it. If a rule needs an exception, either write the exception into the rule so it applies to everyone, or change the rule.

6

Write the rules where both families can read them

A list is negotiable, a rule is not — but only if it exists in writing. Seven numbered lines on one page ends more conversations than any amount of patient explaining.

Common mistakes

What goes wrong when a list gets cut

Every one of these is recoverable, and every one costs a conversation you did not need to have. The first two are the expensive ones.

✕

Cutting names instead of rules

It feels like the careful, kind version and it is the opposite. A name cut on its own has no reason attached to it, so the person it happens to supplies their own reason — and theirs is worse than yours.

✕

Trimming a circle you have already half-invited

Half a circle is not a saving, it is a comparison. Three of seven cousins in means four people who will work out, on the same afternoon, exactly what the other three have that they do not.

✕

Cutting past the number you need

Not everybody invited will come, so a list cut to the exact size of the room is cut too far. Work out the invite-to-attendance gap first — it belongs to the RSVP side of the site — and cut to that number instead of to the seat count.

✕

Letting the cut happen in a group chat

Two families and a phone is not a decision-making body, and every name typed into it becomes a position somebody now has to defend. Cut in one room, in one sitting, then send out the rules rather than the debate.

✕

Hinting that an invitation might still come

"We'll see closer to the time" leaves somebody holding a date they cannot use. If a circle might genuinely be invited later, that is a mailing decision with its own timing, and it is worked out on the RSVP side of the site — not implied over coffee.

✕

Trading names between the two families one at a time

Once a cut becomes an exchange rate — one of yours for one of theirs — it never ends, because both sides are now counting. Give each family a number and let them spend it.

Free, and it never leaves your browser

Take a whole tier off and watch the seats come back

The builder opens with the room set to 150 and the tier column sorted, so a cut is one toggle rather than a hundred small decisions. Switch a tier off and the count moves in a single step, and it reports what that tier gave back; switch it on and the seats go away again. Add your own households on top and the same arithmetic runs on your list — nothing you type is stored or sent anywhere, and there is no saved copy, which is why the download is the point.

Wedding guest list templateFree · no sign-up · runs entirely in your browser

A list that does not fit the room: 214 seats against a capacity of 150, so you can watch a whole tier come off.

This is how many people you can invite, not how many will come — turning one into the other is what the attendance-rate page does: to seat 100, invite 118 to 128.

14 circles are on this list. A circle is what the consistency check reads.

214

214 people in 108 householdsThat is 64 people more than the 150 you can seat. The tier table below shows exactly which cut brings you under.

First nameLast nameHouseholdCircleTierPlus ones
Two people with the same household label are one invitation.

Everything here runs in your browser. Nothing you type is stored or sent anywhere — there is no account, no saved list and no cookie holding your guests (we count anonymous, bucketed usage of the tool itself, never a name, a number or a list size). That also means closing this tab loses the list, which is why the button says download.

Where the line falls

  • ATier A — no wedding without them58 in this tier · 30 households · 58 with everything above it58
  • BTier B — you want them there88 in this tier · 44 households · 146 with everything above it88
  • CTier C — only if there is room68 in this tier · 45 households · 214 with everything above it68
  • Not invitingNot inviting0 in this tier · 0 households · left out of the export0
  • Your list is 64 people over the 150 seats you set. Take a whole tier or a whole circle off — do not pick through one.

Downloads a CSV of everyone still on the list — tiers A, B and C, minus any tier you have switched off above. The not-inviting pile stays on this page.

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Keep exploring

More on deciding who to invite

Who to invite to your weddingThe whole decision, circle by circle→How many guests parents getSplitting the seats before anyone writes a name→Deciding on a child-free weddingOne policy for the whole list, and its exceptions→Friends, and who invited youReciprocity, friend groups and the honest test→Inviting coworkersThe test that keeps a team from being split→Estranged familyA named decision, made once and recorded→
Good to know

Cutting the list: questions couples actually ask

How do I cut down my wedding guest list?

Rank every circle A, B or C first, then cut whole circles rather than individual names. Tier A is the people whose absence would change the day, Tier B is everyone you would be glad to see, and Tier C is the layer that comes off first. On the worked list on this page that takes 214 invited seats down to 146 in five cuts — second cousins, everyone from work, neighbors, friends neither of you has seen in two years, and children under 18 — and not one of those five is a decision about a named person.

What are the rules for a wedding guest list?

The ones that hold up are all whole-list rules: one partner standard applied to everybody, one children policy applied to everybody, and one family boundary applied to both sides. Decide each rule before you look at the list, apply it without exception, and write the rules down where both families can read them. The rule that has no exception at all is that you never cut somebody who has already been told they are invited.

How do I prioritize my wedding guest list?

Sort by circle, not by person, and give each circle one of three tiers. A is no-wedding-without-them. B is people you actively want there. C is only-if-there-is-room. Assign the tier to the whole circle, so cutting later is one toggle instead of an argument, and count cumulatively: if A plus B already fits the room, the cut is finished and C is a decision you never have to make.

Is it rude to cut someone from the wedding guest list?

Not if they were never told they were invited. A list in progress is a plan, and shortening it is normal. What is genuinely rude is inconsistency — inviting half a circle, or applying a rule to one family and not the other — and going back on an invitation somebody has already been given. If you have said the words out loud, find the seats somewhere else.

Should we cut children or coworkers first?

Coworkers, in almost every case. It is usually the larger circle, it is the one people expect least, and nobody has to rearrange their life around it. A child-free rule frees more seats but changes whether some households can come at all, so it goes second — and when you do make it, make it once, for everybody, and put it on the invitation rather than leaving it to a phone call.

What do we do when we can't agree on who to cut?

Tier the same list separately, without seeing each other's answers, then cut everything you both put in Tier C with no discussion. On a typical pass that is most of the gap. What is left is a short list of households you disagree about — a specific twenty-minute conversation instead of an open-ended argument about the whole list, and it stops the cut being a negotiation between two families by proxy.

Do we have to tell people they didn't make the list?

Only the people who had reason to think they were coming — anyone you talked about it with, and anyone whose circle was invited around them. Tell them yourself, once, before the invitations arrive, and name the rule rather than the person: "we stopped at first cousins on both sides." Everybody else simply does not receive an invitation, which is not a message you owe them.

A list is names on a page.
Until you send it, that is all it is.

Build the list here, download it, and import the file into Text My Wedding — the same names then carry the invitation, the RSVP and every reminder, without anybody retyping them.

Build my guest list →
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