The guest list

Thinking back to our wedding in 2012 the guest list meant a few different things to us. At first, as a guy who had risen from homelessness in my teens to somewhat of a successful career in the media, and was now a wedding celebrant I had the thing many guys have when they are assembling their guest list. We want to call up everyone we ever knew and let them know we made it! We want to send them an invite to the show where they find out whether or not we’re a complete failure or not.

So I jotted down close to two-hundred names along with spouses and showed Britt and then she showed me the calculator app on her phone and the price per head from the wedding venue.

I then decided that maybe they could all just see a photo on Facebook instead.

From the legion I had originally assembled I brought my personal number down to about ten plus a handful of family who mostly didn’t show up anyway.

Britt had about the same but her family were mature enough to get along well in public at the time so on game day we had 45 in attendance at the wedding ceremony.

45 is a good number, we got to spend quality time with everyone on the night which didn’t happen at our engagement party. About 150 people attended our engagement party and I’ll never forget my friend Jon. He and his wife had travelled down from Toowoomba for the party and I remember greeting him with glee at the front door. I then continued to greet everyone that arrived and once that flow of people slowed I had a drink, said hello to a few friends, and then got pulled in front of a microphone for a speech and a cake. Mere seconds after this a few family members with kids had to leave so we said goodbye to them, then the flow out the door began and I got to see Jon for the second time that night as we said goodbye.

What a waste for them to have driven so far but for us to have enjoyed so little time together.

Looking back on it all there are about ten more people I wish we had invited to the wedding because today we’re closer than we’ve ever been, but still, our friendship continued to grow and mature despite them not receiving a wedding invitation which is evidence of them being even better people than we realised at the time.

At the end of it all, invite as many people to your wedding as possible, and as few as you can. No more, no less. No obligation guests, no childhood neighbours or family friends you haven’t seen in twenty years but your parents would really like them to be there. It’s there same as me wanting to invite everyone I’ve ever met to show them that I got the chocolate - they can all see your win online, but when there are limited seats and limited money, obligation guests are deadweight I’d encourage you to cut.