How many guests are you inviting to your wedding reception?

Medium sized wedding receptions of between 50 and 100 guests are the most popular choice for Easy Weddings couples according to the results of a poll. 45% of couples stated that their wedding reception guest list fell within this range, while 70% said that they were inviting between 50 and 150.

Medium sized guest lists are common for a number of reasons. Inviting between 50 and 1150 guests provides plenty of opportunity to invite all your friends, family, and close work colleagues, without inviting so many people that you don’t get chance to mingle with all of them. This number of guests keeps the wedding relatively affordable and a medium sized guest list means that couples have a greater choice of reception venues to choose from as the capacity of most venues can stretch to 100 or 150.

From the results of the poll, the 30% of couples whose guest list size fell outside of this range were fairly equally split between small and large weddings. 14% reported they would invite fewer than 50 guests to a small intimate wedding, and presumably this would include couples having a destination wedding. On the other hand 16% said they would be inviting more than 150 guests, with an impressive 3% inviting more than 300 to a truly lavish event.

This poll ran in January 2003, but in recent years the economic situation has meant there has been a trend for smaller, more intimate weddings. Couples have been spending more per guest on the venue, dinner, and favours, but spending less on the wedding overall.   Look out for our next poll on the subject of guest list sizes to see whether the results have changed significantly.