About A Guest List

Image via Destination Wedding Mag

We knew that we wanted to have a large wedding... so we made sure to book a venue capable of holding at least 200 people... but eventually we would have to make a guest list and get a real head count...

For me, this was pretty easy... my family tree is about this big:

Image Via Doorship Shopping Network

And since I have moved all around the country I have lost touch with a lot of high school and college friends - that coupled with the fact that most people will have to travel, I really am not expecting a huge turn out on my behalf - just the people who matter most I guess....

He on the other hand has a family tree that resembles:

Image Via MyClipta

Yeah.... pretty much the BIGGEST family tree in the world... He has 3 sisters and a brother.... his parents both have 6 or 7 siblings each and all the generations that come with that... plus, as planned, the majority will likely be able to attend since we're having the wedding in California where they all live...

Over Easter this year He sat down with his mom and made up a list... by hand... and I was left with the lovely task of entering it into a digital form of some sort...

I chose TheKnot.com 's online guest list tracker by random - I just happened to be on their site working on my budget when I noticed that they had the guest list feature. I started using it to get a better idea of who I wanted to invite and before I knew it I had already listed out 60 guests!!!

After entering His list into mine we currently have 207 people to invite!!! And that's just round 1!

Some of my favorite features of this tool, if you enter the info in properly:

• I know how many invitation I will need to send: currently 101



• I can export the list into Excel: that way I can email to FMIL to help track down some addresses
  


• I can sort by A list and B list guest : not to be snobby!! I just use it to rank likelihood that people will attend
  


• I can track who has RSVP'ed - and who we've sent thank you notes to
  


• The list links directly into a digital seating chart that you can use to arrange your venue layout!



• I can group guests, like "my family" "his family"... etc

And the only thing I currently do not care for is that I can't (or haven't figured out how to) separate a group so that kids can sit separate from adults, or wedding party guest can sit with us at the 'head table'.... but other than that I LOVE the extra organization that TheKnot.com 's guest list tracker has to offer!

How are you managing to keep track of your guests?