Which comes first: venue or guest list?

ast284

Hi all! Well first off, I'm not officially an October bride b/c FI and I have not booked a venue yet but we are either going with Sept or Oct.

So that brings me to my question. For those of you who have booked a venue, did you make a tentative guest list first or just decide on the number of people?

I ask b/c I found a venue I really like but wanted to make a tentative guest list to make sure it would be large enough. My mom thinks that bc I'm will be finished with college in Aug that I will not see most of my friends anymore and may not want to invite them this time next year. And she is sure most of our family won't travel out of state, due to the fact very few of them did for my brother's wedding a few years ago. So in her mind there won't be that many people there (also bc my brother didn't have many friends to invite).

Its not like I'm sending out invitations or anything, just trying to get a rough estimate.

If you haven't booked a venue, have you thought about who you would inivite?

BMBrinson

I came up with a rough estimate of how many people I would invite....like my range was 150-200 that way I knew that my venue could handle that amount of people and I would't have to cut important people. This also depends on your budget...you have to be comfortable with the amount of money you will spend on the food and things like that....this was also a deciding factor on the guest list. I have satyed in contact with many of my friends from college and they are all very excited about my wedding!

jackiebean26

i would check the venue's minimum and maximum guest total and go from there. 

also  i have college friends that i can only see every few months due to distance but they are still my friends so they are getting an invite. i would count your college friends on your tentative list. 

mana8503

At first we just picked a number.  Like you, we have a lot of OOT guest that may or may not come.  Then I sat down and did a rough list, since the venue we loved had a minimum for Saturday night.  I did like worse case and best case so I could tell if the venue was in my price range (have you talked budget yet?) as well as I had the minimun

sam+billy

I just wrote down every person in my family that I would invite and close friends and went from there. After writing it down it really does come to more than I thought it would.

acwm

We came up with a rough estimate of how many guests, then checked out venues that were the right size. Then we got some pricing information from the venues and ran the numbers on a few different scenarios (smallest list, medium list, biggest list) to see what would work with our budget.

halij52002

We made our guest list first. That's just the way it went. We have booked our venue already and it's perfect for us. We are havng between 100 and 120 guests.

RockerBride89

I would say go with whatever is most important to you.  If you've had your heart set on a certain venue, and you don't mind excluding some people from your final guests list, go with the venue.  If having everyone you can think of at your wedding is more important, than finalize a guests list first.  We had a sort of rough estimate before choosing a venue, but were no where near having a complete one. I knew I wanted to get married in a barn, so I put the venue over the guest list.  Also keep in mind that some venues get booked really fast.  We planned on a May wedding, but our Barn was booked up untill October 2012, so we had dto book it over a year and a half in advance.

irisheyezrsmilen

the first question any hall will ask is "how many people"  so try to get a rough est, of how many people you will be inviting.  it also helps to have that so you can get a budget before you book anything. we were saying to ourselves a wedding of 130pp once we started making our mock guest list we noticed we were up to 160 now its been steady at 185pp lol so it helps.

when you do go look at halls always remember to ask them to add the tax and gratuity to the price too. it became a make or break with a few halls. at least in ny there is a 20% tax and grat. so that great price of 60pp would turn into 80pp. 

Heath66

At first I wanted 120. I thought that would be great until I sat down and I realized that 120 was not plausible. Our list is in the 160s. Good thing we made this mock guest list because one of the venues that we loved can only fit 140. I was upset that we are too big for it but I was glad that I figured it out before we put money down on the place.

I highly recommend making a "mock" guest list just so you don't end up with a venue that won't fit your list.

jeslm

I think you need at least a very rough idea of guests before you book a venue- it might affect which venues you can choose from.  I asked each of the parents for rough ideas of their guest lists, then FI and I put together a list of friends.  We're hovering in the 200 range at the moment, so that's what we're going to tell venues when we go see them.  Around here, having a rough idea is kind of important, as it can affect price- there are a few places I've looked at that will drop the price if we guarantee over 150.

fishinflagirl

I havent booked my venue, but in the search process. I have found that they might ask you a tentative number just so that they can tell you yes, they will fit comfortably, or no you might be pushing it.

shoebie

Make your guest list and make sure whatever venue you want can hold that much it will get smaller lol. I made my guest list last may when i got engaged prob about 40 ppl are already off it good luck