With less than two months to go till my wedding I haven’t even mailed out invitations yet. However, I am already dealing with the headache that comes along with the dreaded guest list.

During the preplanning stage, Leonard and I decided to downsize our entire wedding, so our guest list went from 200 to 75. After Leonard officially proposed we went about creating our guest list. Since we were getting married in Los Angeles, as opposed to either of the cities we grew up in, we figured that alone would help with crowd control. I asked Leonard for his list and he gave me about 20 names. I, on the other hand, had more than three times that amount. Again, I knew many of those people wouldn’t come, but sending an invitation was expected. For instance, my grandmother insisted that I send invitations to her 9 siblings, the pastor of the church I grew up in, and her best friends from Ford, a company she retired from 10 years ago. I happily obliged.

Since we were working on a tight time schedule I had to hurry and get the guest list together so that the save-the-dates could go out as soon as possible. Once Leonard discovered my list he began making additions. Luckily, I’d ordered extra save the dates. When the time came to order the actually invitations, our guest list had swollen to 131. Again, since our wedding was out of town for most, we are estimating about a 50 percent attendance rate. However, it seems like that number keeps increasing daily.

When Leonard returned home from Texas, he added 6 more names to the list. Last week his sister added 2 more, and yesterday my grandmother requested I just send her 2 extra invitations that she could give out to anyone she may have forgotten. While I’m all for inviting people who love us to our wedding, for planning and budgeting reasons I really need this number to stop growing. Right now I’m estimating anywhere between 60 and 100 people at my wedding. Those of you who’ve planned or are currently planning understand that that’s a huge difference which affects everything from decorations, rentals, food and alcohol.

Next week invitations go out, thankfully. And I’m hoping to be able to narrow down that number. In the meantime, I’ve explained to everyone involved that the guest list is now closed and we are no longer in that phase of the planning process. I’ve arrangement our current list into 3 categories, “definitely coming”, “definitely not coming” and “I have no clue.” Major decisions are pretty much on hold until RSVPs start coming in. I’ve already enlisted my cousin and bridesmaid Jana to be the guest list enforcer. Didn’t send in your RSVP by the requested time? Expect a call from Jana. In the meantime, I’m just going to pray that we don’t exceed the capacity of the venue and totally blow the budget.

Do you have any wedding guest list tips for Nicole? Share below in the comments.