Whether your wedding is at home, in a ballroom or on the beach, there will be a limit to how many people you can invite. Creating the wedding guest list is not always a fun task, but it is a necessary one - and so is cutting down the guest list when you've gone a little overboard. Cutting your guest list can get a bit emotional, but the Fifth Edition of Emily Post's Wedding Etiquetteis here to help! Check out these 6 steps to paring down your wedding guest list.

  • Make across-the-board, clear-cut distinctions. To avoid hurt feelings when a guest list is limited, subdivide the groupings across the board. For example, if numbers are limited, you could invite all aunts and uncles and forgo cousins. Then, stick to categories equilaterally, treating each list as a whole.


  • Leave out work associates--all or some. When space is absolutely at a premium, some couples delete work associates entirely. This can reduce the list considerably, while also keeping the wedding more personal, with only family and close, longtime friends attending. Or perhaps you invite only your boss and your respective assistants, or just your immediate department. Your other coworkers will clearly understand that you had to make a cutoff.


  • Beware parental paybacks. This is not the time for parents to insist on reciprocity for all the gifts they've given and weddings they've attended in the past, nor does your wedding need to be the occasion for them to fulfill their own social obligations.


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  • Remember: Shower guests are wedding guests. Any guest who is invited to a shower must also be invited to the wedding, with a few exceptions, such as coworkers who give an office shower. Keep that in mind when drawing up your guest lists for wedding showers.


  • Talk to friends who live far away. If you know that distance will prevent certain people from attending, call them to see if they think they can make the wedding If not, factor this in.


  • Stick to your first-tier and second-tier guest lists. Try to redraw your lines equilaterally, bumping entire groupings of people--second cousins, work associates with whom you've never socialized, or friends from the health club.



Excerpted from Fifth Edition of Emily Post's Wedding Etiquette by Peggy Post. © 2006 HarperCollins Publishers