The Wedding Guest List

If you have been following the wedding preparations of Prince William and Kate Middleton, you probably have heard of their controversial guest list.

According to AFP News,  "around 1,900 guests including foreign royals, politicians and celebrities including Elton John, David and Victoria Beckham and Rowan Atkinson have accepted invitations to attend the exclusive ceremony." 

The Royal Wedding blog also gave juicy info about Will and Kate’s guest list, and noted that the presence of "Middle Eastern royalty and billionaires with ties to late South American dictators is sparking controversy".

Wow, what a guest list indeed!

As for us, our guest list if fairly small and AJ and I have agreed early on that we will prioritize our super-like and super-close relatives over officemates.   So 80% of our guest will be our relatives while the remaining 20% are childhood friends, former and present colleagues at work.   

I am really thankful that no fighting or disagreements ensued when we were drawing up our list.  It also helped that my parents understand that since ours is a small wedding, we have to "maximize" the list and invite only those whom we really, really want to share our special day.  

As for the RSVP thing, I would say that even with a small no. of guests, it is still a challenge.   I still want to hear the "yes, we’re coming" direct from our invitees instead of just assuming that they will come.   

And assuming that they have given their "yes", there is still the chance that they will not come to the wedding at all.  In fact, my sis-in-law (who got married in 2009) told me that at least 5% of the confirmed guests will still not show up during the wedding.  Is this true?  I’m kinda worried about this because the seats reserved for that 5% could have been allotted for those in our "wait list".

To the brides out there, how did you handle the challenges and stress of following up RSVPs?  

As for Will and Kate, I read that some of the controversial invitees were forced to change their RSVP to a "No" because of protests from the public.    Yaaay!