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Who to invite to a small wedding

At 20 seats you invite immediate family, grandparents and the people standing up with you, and nothing else fits. At 50 you add the aunts and uncles, the cousin layer and the friends you actually see. At 75 you get exactly one more whole circle — the wider friend group or the second cousins, not both. That is the whole answer, and the reason it is written in circles rather than in names is that capacity is a constraint on the list, not on the people in it: thirty extra seats buys you two or three whole layers, never thirty favorite individuals picked one at a time. Below are 14 worked lists at all three numbers, the ranking that generates them, and a builder that opens at 50 so you can watch which circles cross the line when you change it.

Build my guest list →Browse the worked lists
Which regime are you in?

Three capacity numbers, three different lists

Find your seat count and read across. Each row routes whole circles rather than deciding people, which is why the answer holds up when someone asks you to explain it.

1

You can seat about 20

Immediate family, grandparents and the people standing up with you — then stop. Both sets of parents, your siblings and their partners, grandparents with a carer where one is needed, and the wedding party with their partners comes to roughly twelve seats on a typical list. Add the aunts and uncles whole and you are at eighteen. The next circle down — first cousins — is seven households and nine seats, so it does not fit and all seven are out. The two seats you have left over stay spare. Nothing at this size is worth splitting a layer for.

2

You can seat about 50

Family through the first cousins, plus the friends you see week to week. Fifty is the number where the family half of the list finishes and the friend half starts. Immediate family, grandparents, the wedding party, aunts and uncles and every first cousin lands around twenty-seven seats; the friends you would call on a bad Tuesday take you into the low forties; your parents' allocation absorbs the rest. Coworkers, second cousins, neighbors and university friends you have not seen in five years are all out — whole, and that is what makes it sayable.

3

You can seat about 75

Add exactly one more whole circle, and leave the rest spare. Seventy-five is not fifty with twenty-five favors attached. It is fifty, and then one more rung of the ladder: the college and childhood friends, or the second cousins, or the team you work with — pick the one, take it whole, and stop. Whatever seats are left after that are your margin for the four people you will remember in month three and the partner who becomes a fiancé in month five.

4

The venue quotes you a range — sixty to eighty

Build the list at the bottom of the range. A list built at eighty and then trimmed to sixty is trimmed person by person, because by then the names are real. A list built at sixty and then loosened to eighty grows by a whole circle, which is one decision and one conversation. Same room, same final number, completely different fight.

5

It is a destination wedding

Rank the circles exactly as you would at home. The ladder does not change because the wedding is abroad. What changes is how many invitations turn into seats, and that is a second number rather than a shorter list. Do not widen the list on the assumption that half will decline, and do not narrow it to spare people the airfare — declining is their decision to make, and taking it away from them is the version they remember.

Your seat count is not your invitation count. Turning the number the room holds into the number of invitations to send is worked out on the wedding attendance rate page, and its answer is exactly the capacity number this page's builder takes.

20, 50, 75

📐 The same wedding at three capacities

One invented wedding, two families, worked at all three regimes. Copy the one closest to your number and swap the names — the shape is the useful part, and the running totals are what tell you where your own line falls.

Example 01

20 SEATS — the whole list, by name Elena & Marco Alvarez · immediate family · 2 Ruth & Alan Whitfield · immediate family · 2 Sofia Alvarez + partner · immediate family · 2 Iris Whitfield + carer · grandparents · 2 Priya & Sam Raman · wedding party · 2 Jonah Bell + partner · wedding party · 2 Rosa & Julio Alvarez · aunts and uncles · 2 Bea Whitfield + guest · aunts and uncles · 2 Marcus & Ines Alvarez · aunts and uncles · 2 — 9 households, 18 seats, 2 spare. Next circle down: first cousins, 7 households, 9 seats. It does not fit, so all seven are out. The two spare seats stay spare — there is no version of spending them that does not split a layer.

At 20Personalize
Example 02

50 SEATS — the same wedding, three circles wider Immediate family, both sides · 3 households · 6 seats · running total 6 Grandparents · 1 household · 2 seats · 8 Wedding party and their partners · 2 households · 4 seats · 12 Aunts and uncles · 3 households · 6 seats · 18 First cousins, all seven · 7 households · 9 seats · 27 The friends you see week to week · 8 households · 13 seats · 40 Parents' friends, out of their 8 seats · 4 households · 8 seats · 48 — 28 households, 48 seats, 2 under the line. Entirely out at this number: second cousins, coworkers, neighbors, and every friend either of you has not seen since university.

At 50Personalize
Example 03

75 SEATS — one more whole circle, and only one Everything on the 50-seat list · 28 households · 48 seats + College and childhood friends, whole · 11 households · 18 seats · 66 + Nobody else. — 39 households, 66 seats, 9 under the line. Second cousins would have been the next rung: 9 households, 11 seats, which takes you to 77 and over. The nine seats you are holding back are not waste. They are the answer to "can we just add…" for the next four months, and by the time the invitations go out you will have spent most of them on people you genuinely forgot.

At 75Personalize
Example 04

20 → 50: WHAT THIRTY MORE SEATS ACTUALLY BUY + First cousins, all seven · 9 seats + The friends you see week to week · 13 seats + Your parents' allocation, spent on their friends · 8 seats = 30 seats · 3 whole circles · 0 individual decisions What it does not buy: thirty favorite people chosen one at a time. At this scale thirty seats is two or three circles wide, and which circles is the only question worth arguing about. If you find yourselves naming individuals, you have started building the list at the wrong end.

The 20→50 deltaPersonalize
Example 05

50 → 75: THE ONE-CIRCLE CHOICE Option A · College and childhood friends · 11 households · 18 seats · 9 left over Option B · Second cousins and cousins once removed · 9 households · 11 seats · 16 left over Option C · The team you work with, whole · 6 households · 9 seats · 18 left over Option D · Nothing. Stay at 50 and keep 25 seats of room. — Pick one and take it whole. Half of A plus half of C is how a 75-seat wedding turns into forty separate conversations, and both halves notice on the same afternoon.

One circle, not two halvesPersonalize

A small list is the one you will retype the most

Fifty names feels small enough to keep in your head, so it gets rebuilt from memory three times — once when you write the invitations, once when somebody's mother asks for the list, and once when you chase the people who never replied. Build it once here, download the file, and every version after that is a copy rather than a retype.

Open the builder →
Rank, then cut

🪜 Which whole circles fall below the line

A small list is not made by choosing people. It is made by ordering your circles once, drawing the line where the seats run out, and then refusing to re-open the order for anybody. Here is the ladder, the readout of what sits below it, and the two rules that survive contact at this size.

Example 06

RANK YOUR CIRCLES ONCE — the order, not the names 1 · Immediate family, both sides 2 · Grandparents 3 · Wedding party and their partners 4 · Aunts and uncles 5 · The friends you would call on a bad Tuesday 6 · First cousins 7 · Your parents' friends, from their allocation 8 · College and childhood friends 9 · People who invited you to theirs 10 · Second cousins and cousins once removed 11 · The team you work with 12 · Your boss 13 · Neighbors — Tie-break, in this order: whose absence would make the day itself different; who have you spoken to in the last twelve months; who invited you in the other direction. Three things are deliberately not on this ladder. Children are a whole-list policy. A partner standard is a whole-list rule. An estranged relative is a named decision. None of the three is a rung, and treating them as one is how the ladder collapses.

The ladderPersonalize
Example 07

AT 50 — THE CIRCLES THAT ARE ENTIRELY OUT Coworkers · 6 households · 9 seats · out, whole Your boss · 1 household · 2 seats · out, whole Second cousins and once-removed · 9 households · 11 seats · out, whole Neighbors · 4 households · 7 seats · out, whole Friends you have not seen since university · 5 households · 8 seats · out, whole — 25 households, 37 seats, and one sentence that covers all of them: "we could seat fifty, so it ended up being family and the friends we actually see." Nobody in a circle that is out whole has anyone to compare themselves against. That is the entire benefit of cutting by circle at this size, and it disappears the moment one name comes back across the line.

Out whole at 50Personalize
Example 08

THE ONE EXCEPTION, COSTED HONESTLY The rule: college friends are out at 50. The exception: Tess Okafor, who you speak to every week. What it costs — Tess · 1 seat. Her partner, because every other household on the list has theirs · 1 seat. The four people in that group chat who find out · 0 seats and four conversations. The rule you could previously say out loud · gone. — Real price: 2 seats and your ability to answer the question. Make the exception if the honest reason is that you ranked her in the wrong circle — then move her circle, not her. Do not make it if the honest reason is that she asked.

The exceptionPersonalize
Example 09

THE PARTNER STANDARD, PRICED AT 50 SEATS Households on the list with a partner attached · 14 of 28 "Married, engaged, or living together" · 14 extra seats · 28% of the room "Married or engaged only" · 9 extra seats · 18% of the room "Everyone brings someone" · 23 extra seats · 46% of the room — The gap between the narrowest standard and the widest is 14 seats: more than a quarter of the room, and wider than your entire cousin layer. At 150 seats this is a preference. At 50 it is a circle. Pick one standard, write it down, and apply it to all 28 households — including the wedding party, including your siblings, including the cousin you are least sure about.

Partner standardPersonalize
Micro, intimate, abroad

✈️ Micro weddings, destination weddings, and two-event lists

Below about twenty-five the layer rules stop being the whole answer, and a wedding abroad changes the arithmetic without changing the ranking. These three are the versions people get wrong most often.

Example 10

A MICRO WEDDING — THE 12-SEAT LIST Elena & Marco Alvarez · 2 Ruth & Alan Whitfield · 2 Sofia Alvarez + partner · 2 Iris Whitfield + carer · 2 Priya & Sam Raman · 2 Jonah Bell + partner · 2 — 6 households, 12 seats, full. At twelve there is no layer left to trim, so the rule changes shape: every name is a named person and the test is whether you would say the reason out loud to the person it excludes. Two things stay non-negotiable even here. A married or live-in partner is never split off their household, and a grandparent who needs a carer brings one. Those are seats, not guests, and counting them late is how a twelve-seat list becomes a fifteen-seat list the week before.

Micro at 12Personalize
Example 11

DESTINATION — SAME LIST, DIFFERENT ARITHMETIC Circles in, at a 50-seat villa · immediate family · grandparents · wedding party · aunts and uncles · first cousins · the friends you see week to week Circles out, whole · parents' friends · coworkers · second cousins · neighbors — The ranking is identical to the one you would use at home. What is different is how many of those invitations turn into seats, which is a separate calculation and not a reason to change the list. The two mistakes: inviting a wider circle because "half of them won't come" — the wrong half will, and you will be over — and quietly cutting people to spare them the flights. Whether they can afford it is their call. Invite them and let them decline; a decline they chose is a nicer memory than an invitation that never arrived.

DestinationPersonalize
Example 12

SMALL WEDDING, BIGGER PARTY LATER — two lists, one ranking Ceremony and dinner · 50 seats · rungs 1-7 on the ladder Party at home in September · no seat limit · rungs 8-13, each taken whole Neither list · the named decisions: an estranged relative, an ex, the colleague nobody wants there — One ranking generates both lists, which is exactly why the ranking is worth doing properly the first time. The thing not to do: tell anyone in the second group they are in the second group before both invitations exist. "You're invited to the other thing" is the sentence that turns a generous plan into a ranking people can see.

Two eventsPersonalize
The conversation afterwards

💬 What you say when the wedding is small

At this size more people are out than in, so you will say some version of this several times. Both scripts name the number and the circle, never the person, and neither offers a maybe.

Example 13

"We're having a really small one — fifty people, and it worked out as family plus the friends we see week to week. You're not on the list, and I hate that sentence. I wanted you to hear it from me rather than piece it together in April. Can I take you out for dinner that month instead?"

Close friend, cut by the linePersonalize
Example 14

"It's about fifty people and it's family and the friends we've had for ten years — we're not inviting anyone from work at all, on either side. I'd have loved a bigger one. That's just the room."

Nobody from workPersonalize
Person, layer, or list?

At this size, capacity is a whole-list rule

A seat count governs the list, not the people on it — it decides which layers are in, and the layers decide who. Applying it one person at a time is the mistake that turns a fifty-person wedding into fifty separate negotiations.

1

We can seat 50

The whole list · The list as a whole. Enforced person by person it becomes fifty small negotiations, each of which you lose slightly, and the fiftieth name is decided by whoever asked most recently.

2

First cousins are out at this size

A whole layer · Every household in the circle. Applied to one cousin it is a verdict on that cousin, and the other six will know within a day which one it was.

3

Nobody from work, on either side

A whole layer · Every household in the circle. One exception re-opens the whole team, because the exception becomes the new boundary and everyone else measures themselves against it.

4

Tess comes even though her circle is out

One person · One named individual. Dressed up as a layer rule it quietly invites eleven more people; kept as a secret it lasts about two weeks. Make it as a person-level decision or not at all.

5

Every household with a live-in partner gets both names

The whole list · The list as a whole. Decided household by household at fifty seats it costs a whole circle's worth of room, and nobody — including you — can afterwards say what the standard was.

6

Each set of parents gets eight of the fifty

An allocation · Each contributor's bucket. Left unstated, every name your parents add looks like it came straight out of your friends, because at this size it did.

This page decides which circles are on the list at a given size. It does not do the arithmetic on either side of that. To turn the number your room holds into the number of invitations to send, use the wedding attendance rate — its answer is precisely the capacity number the builder above takes, and going the other way, this list is what that number is for. Whether a guest's partner gets one of your scarce seats is set as a standard here and allocated in the plus-one rules; whether children are on a small list at all belongs with adults-only invitation wording. If a circle you cut whole might come back when the declines land, the timing of that lives on second-wave invitations, and the rest of the planning for a wedding abroad is on the destination wedding timeline. Once the names are settled, collecting their numbers is the next job — this builder never asks for one.

The rules that hold at this size

Four rules worth agreeing before you write a single name

Every one of these is obvious written down and invisible at eleven o'clock at night, which is when small guest lists are actually argued about.

1

Capacity decides layers, not people

Your seat count picks which rungs of the ladder are in. The rungs pick the people. The moment a seat count is applied directly to individuals, you are ranking your relatives against each other and you will have to defend the ranking.

2

Rank once, and never re-rank for one person

If somebody belongs higher than you filed them, move their whole circle, not them. A ladder that is re-ordered for a single name stops being a reason and becomes a record of who lobbied hardest.

3

A partner standard is a whole-list rule, priced in circles

At 50 seats the difference between the narrowest and widest partner standard is worth more than your cousin layer. Choose one standard before you start, apply it to every household, and never make it per-household.

4

Spare seats are margin, not an invitation to fill them

Every small list acquires three or four people you genuinely forgot, plus at least one partner who becomes a fiancé between now and the day. Leaving the last handful of seats empty is a decision, and it is the one that stops you re-opening a circle in month five.

Common mistakes

What goes wrong when the list has to be small

None of these is fatal and thousands of couples have survived all five. They are still worth avoiding, because each one costs a conversation you did not have to have.

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Building the list out of favorite people

It is the natural way to write a short list and it produces the one thing you cannot explain: a ranking of individuals. Start from circles, put the line where the seats end, and the list arrives already justified.

✕

Taking half a circle because "they'll understand"

Three of seven cousins, or four of six on the team, is the version everybody notices and nobody says anything about. At 150 seats a split layer is a mistake; at 50 it is the only thing anyone remembers about your guest list.

✕

Writing the list before you have a number

A list written first is a list you then have to cut, name by name, with every name already attached to a face. Get a seat count — even a rough one, even the middle of the venue's range — and build downward from it.

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Inviting wider because it is a destination wedding

Padding the list on the assumption that a chunk will decline is a bet on which chunk. The circles that decline are rarely the ones you were expecting to, and being over on a 50-seat villa is a much worse problem than being under.

✕

Offering a maybe

"You're on the list if there's room" is the kindest sentence available and the most expensive. It converts one difficult conversation into six months of a person waiting, and then the same difficult conversation anyway. Say the number, say the circle, and stop.

Free, and it never leaves your browser

Set the number, watch the circles cross the line

The list below opens at 50 seats with 21 of them used across 11 households — and with three of seven first cousins on it, which the checker flags before you have finished reading this. Change the capacity to 20 and the whole cousin layer stops fitting; change it to 75 and a second friend group does. Every Personalize link on this page reopens the builder at that list's number.

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

Capacity set to 50. Watch where the line lands, and which whole circle it lands between.

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.

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

21

21 people in 11 householdsThat leaves 29 seats spare against the 50 you set — room for a whole circle, not for a handful of individuals.

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 them12 in this tier · 6 households · 12 with everything above it12
  • BTier B — you want them there9 in this tier · 5 households · 21 with everything above it9
  • CTier C — only if there is room0 in this tier · 0 households · 21 with everything above it0
  • Not invitingNot inviting4 in this tier · 4 households · left out of the export4
  • 3 of 7 first cousins are on the list and 4 are not. Invite the layer or cut the layer — a split one is visible to everybody in it.

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→Your friends' partnersOne standard, applied to every friend on the list→Wedding guest list templateBuild the list in your browser and download it→Do you have to invite extended family?Where the line sits between cousins, and why→Cutting the list downRules that take whole layers off, not individuals→How many guests parents getSplitting the seats before anyone writes a name→
Good to know

Small wedding guest list questions

Who do you invite to a small wedding?

In circles, top down, until the seats run out: immediate family on both sides, grandparents, the people standing up with you and their partners, aunts and uncles, the friends you actually see, then first cousins. At around 20 seats you stop after the aunts and uncles. At 50 you get through the cousins and the close friends. At 75 you can add one more whole circle — the wider friend group or the second cousins — and then you stop again.

How many guests is a small wedding?

There is no official definition, and the words are used loosely and inconsistently: micro is usually under 50 and often 20 or fewer, while small and intimate overlap heavily and are both used anywhere from about 20 up to 75 depending on who is writing. Two venues will hand you two different sets of bands. The number that matters is not the label — it is the one your venue gives you, because that is the number that decides which circles fit.

Do you have to invite cousins to a small wedding?

No, and at 20 seats you almost certainly cannot. What you cannot do is invite three of them. Cousins compare notes faster than any other group on a guest list, so the layer goes in whole or comes out whole. "We couldn't do cousins on either side" is a complete answer; "we invited the ones we're closest to" is a sentence you will be asked to defend.

Is it rude not to invite family to a small wedding?

No. Nobody is owed an invitation and a small wedding is a legitimate choice, not a slight. What reads as rude is inconsistency — inviting your aunts while cutting your partner's, or making one exception in a circle you cut. Draw one line, apply it to both families, and tell the people it affects yourself before the invitations arrive rather than letting them work it out.

How do you narrow down a small wedding guest list?

Rank your circles rather than scoring individuals. Order them once — immediate family, grandparents, wedding party, aunts and uncles, close friends, cousins, and so on down — then draw the line where your seat count runs out and take whatever sits below it out whole. Narrowing by circle is one decision you can repeat to anyone who asks. Narrowing person by person is dozens of decisions, each of which needs its own explanation.

Does everyone get to bring a partner to a small wedding?

Whatever you decide, decide it once for the whole list. At 50 seats the difference between "married, engaged or living together" and "everyone brings someone" is worth more than your entire cousin layer, so it is a capacity decision rather than a courtesy. Married and live-in partners are effectively never split off their household at any size — the standard you are really choosing is where the line sits for everyone else.

Who do you invite to a destination wedding?

The same circles you would invite at home, in the same order. Do not pad the list because you assume people will decline, and do not quietly leave people off to save them the airfare — whether the trip is affordable is theirs to decide, and an invitation they turn down lands far better than one that never came. The only genuinely different number is how many invitations it takes to fill the room, which is worked out separately.

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.

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