technie dunce -- guest list edition

colex · June 2013

Where did you ladies create your guest lists? I have a rough draft written in a notebook but it would probably make more sense to have a computer version somewhere to make it easier to edit.

azag510 · June 2013

I have one saved in excel. I have the names, address, phone number, number invited, and number attending (for me to fill in when RSVP's come in). I also have a column to mark off when thank you notes are sent.

vk2204 · June 2013

We did ours on an excel spreadsheet.

TheBaysideBride · June 2013

hi - we are using a google excel sheet, so we can both edit it. if my parents would join the 21st century and get gmail, they would have access to it as well, in Drive.

manateehugger · June 2013

Excel works just fine for us. I have a copy on my computer and a copy in Google drive.

harper0813 · June 2013

Excel has worked great for me. And Postable is handy for collecting addresses.

AddieCake · June 2013

I created mine on a piece of notebook paper. Never had a single technical glitch!

Kate61487 · June 2013

Ha, Addie I *loved* your post :-)

I also had mine in excel. That book had so many tabs - the main guest list; gift/thank you tracking; table division; escort cards (in a format I could do a mail-merge with word and print them); kids meal choices. We even worked up the night's timeline with all the song choices and our budget in that same workbook. It made it super convenient for me to have everything in one place.

And I'm still referencing it two years later for mailing addresses and "what was her youngest kid's name?" moments.

Gumby68 · June 2013

We did our list in order of importance rather than grouping them by family or friends or something like that. It started with "we won't have a wedding without these people, and will delay, sell an organ, etc to make sure we can invite them" followed by a descending order all the way to the last list of "if we had unlimited money" list. Some of our friends were up there on the first list while some family fell throughout the remaining lists. It worked well when we determined our maximum number, because we simply cut out the remaining lists once we knew what we could invite.

Kate61487 · June 2013

I think leaving the 'groups' isn't a bad idea - it can make grouping tables easier later. Our initial groups were (one for each bride and groom): Family, Extended Family, Friend, Family Friend, Work Friend, Sorority Sister (bride only, obvs).

But we also assigned letter grades to people. Our immediate families and BP were A's - those were the "we would reschedule if the date didn't work for them" type of people. More family and friends were B's - the "we would absolutely invite them". C's were the "we hope we can fit them" and the D's were the "do we really have to?" adult children of second cousins, etc. In the end we invited A, B, and C but left the D's off.

Gumby68 · June 2013

fyrefly76 said:

Thanks! I'm also enjoying the grouping of the list because it allows me to keep common groups of friends together. So that when we're halfway through the Cs and starting to reach our limit, we can invite the bowling team, but leave out the Pub Trivia group. And, if I invite this 2nd cousin, I should probably invite his brother, or leave them both out.
Anybody else have a creative method?

Sounds like you're doing great. That's basically how ours had went too, except they sort of ended up being lists A-V because we had so many so that "pub trivia group" was actually group "P" for example.
Oh, and we used Google Drive so that we both had access and could see edits.

colex · June 2013

Gumby68 said:

fyrefly76 said:

Thanks! I'm also enjoying the grouping of the list because it allows me to keep common groups of friends together. So that when we're halfway through the Cs and starting to reach our limit, we can invite the bowling team, but leave out the Pub Trivia group. And, if I invite this 2nd cousin, I should probably invite his brother, or leave them both out.
Anybody else have a creative method?

Sounds like you're doing great. That's basically how ours had went too, except they sort of ended up being lists A-V because we had so many so that "pub trivia group" was actually group "P" for example.
Oh, and we used Google Drive so that we both had access and could see edits.

I'm doing this in my notebooks. My FI laughs every time I break out my highlighters and markers (I'm a teacher and love color coding) Now I have to get him to teach me excel, it's one of those skills that just slipped past me.

Anyone know of any good tutorials out there?

You guys are so helpful and quick to respond!

Kate61487 · June 2013

colex said:

Gumby68 said:

fyrefly76 said:

Thanks! I'm also enjoying the grouping of the list because it allows me to keep common groups of friends together. So that when we're halfway through the Cs and starting to reach our limit, we can invite the bowling team, but leave out the Pub Trivia group. And, if I invite this 2nd cousin, I should probably invite his brother, or leave them both out.
Anybody else have a creative method?

Sounds like you're doing great. That's basically how ours had went too, except they sort of ended up being lists A-V because we had so many so that "pub trivia group" was actually group "P" for example.
Oh, and we used Google Drive so that we both had access and could see edits.

I'm doing this in my notebooks. My FI laughs every time I break out my highlighters and markers (I'm a teacher and love color coding) Now I have to get him to teach me excel, it's one of those skills that just slipped past me.

Anyone know of any good tutorials out there?

You guys are so helpful and quick to respond!

I find the office help articles to be pretty useful when I'm looking for a new feature I don't yet understand. Here is their article on excel basics: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/basic-tasks-in-excel-2010-HA101829993.aspx

Really, though - if you just open up a new file and start typing the fundamentals for the guest list should be pretty easy - you won't need any equations or anything. If you're familiar with word and its layout Excel is fairly similar for the menus and formatting and such.

Key things you'll probably need to know:
-You can title your columns just by typing in the first row (and making it bold if you want).
-You can make a column wider by clicking your mouse on the little gray line between A and B and dragging it (you can also adjust rows by doing the same between the numbers).
- if you double click on that little gray line it will automatically make the column (or row) the width of what's inside it
-If you try to start a text field with a math symbol like "+ guest" it will get mad; you can make it not mad by putting a ' before the + (it won't show up in the box when you're done)
-Once you've got your stuff entered you can go to data-> filter; or data -> auto filter (depending on what version of excel you're in) and then it will make the column headers (like name, address, group) filter-able and sort-able; so you can just look at whose RSVP is missing, or just look at who's in the "work friend" group or you can put them in alphabetical order
-if you need to add a column between two others you can right click on the part where the letter is and click "insert" and it will put a new one to the left of where you clicked

I'm sure your FI can show you the basics also, but try to get it started and if you have any questions feel free to PM me - I live in Excel most days....

technie dunce -- guest list edition

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