Cutting the guest list without starting a war

Ireland has the largest average wedding guest count in Western Europe. Around 130 is normal; 200 raises no eyebrows. This is lovely and it is expensive.

Set the number before the names

Divide your budget by your target cost per head and treat the result as fixed. If the number is 100, it is 100. Every conversation afterwards is easier when the constraint came first.

The tiers that actually work

1. 1Non-negotiable: immediate family, wedding party, the friends you speak to monthly.
2. 2Strong yes: extended family you see regularly, close couple friends.
3. 3If space allows: colleagues, neighbours, parents' friends.
4. 4Evening only: wider circle, local friends, second-tier work.

Fill tier one, then two, then stop. Tier three exists to absorb declines.

The parents' list

Both sets of parents will have names. Give each set a fixed allocation, "you have twelve", rather than a veto over a shared pool. It converts an argument into arithmetic.

Rules worth holding

• No ring, no bring is a defensible plus-one policy if applied to everyone without exception.
• Children or no children must also be all-or-nothing. Partial exceptions cause more grief than a blanket policy.
• Nobody you have not spoken to in three years, unless family.

Say it once, clearly

Address invitations to named people only. Put "We have limited our day guest list to close family and friends" on the wedding website. Then do not relitigate it, because you will be asked.

Expect 10–15% of Irish invitations to decline, more if guests are travelling. Do not over-invite on that assumption. The year everyone accepts is the year you are over capacity.

Evening guests are not second class

Invite them for the band and the food, tell them what time to arrive, and make sure someone greets them. Done well, nobody minds. Done vaguely, everyone does.