For Indian weddings, where the guest list is often more extensive than most American weddings, it’s especially important to keep control of your wedding guest list. To help shed light on the do’s and don’ts of well thought out Indian wedding guest list etiquette, we turned to Sandy Hammer, cofounder of AllSeated, a free event planning platform that helps couples and top wedding planners stay organized with accurate seating charts, comprehensive guest lists, timelines and more.
Understand the Tradition
Since you will be collaborating with your parents on deciding who to invite, it’s important to understand where they’re coming from and what that means for your big day. If your parents, grandparents or other older family members grew up in India, it means they have fond memories of hosting and attending weddings with guest lists in the hundreds. There, official invites were not necessary because the wedding was usually open to everyone: the family, the members of the community and all neighbors who wanted to stop by.
In addition, key members of the family and extended family will be invited in person. It’s important to decide who does this (usually the father) and that there are enough invitations on hand to deliver in person.
How to Compromise
As exclusion is considered a sign of disrespect, many Indian families want to continue that tradition in America. But for second generation Indian couples, this may not always be possible or even desirable. As budget constraints, stricter venue capacity and perhaps your own desire to limit the celebration to guests you know well play a bigger role, compromise is crucial.
Work with your families to establish a few guidelines for handling their guest list, perhaps creating A and B lists.
Create A and B Lists
Unlike traditional American wedding guest list advice, some Indian couples have found that developing an A list of “absolute musts” and B list of “nice to have” helps them to best navigate and finalize their wedding guest list.
While it may be time consuming, having discussions with your families really helps break down the list. The A list often includes close family members, family friends who have been close to your family and invited your family over in the past 1-2 years. One good guide is if you know their last names and the names of their kids by memory, they are close enough to warrant an invitation.
For the B list, you and your parents can identify others that they would also like to invite such as co-workers, business partners, and community acquaintances.
Decide on Multiple Wedding Events
The fact that your big fat Indian wedding consists of multiple events such as a mehndi night, sangeet, wedding ceremony and reception, allows you to be strategic about which guests to invite to which events.
Single guests don’t always need to be invited with a date, especially if you’re inviting a lot of single guests as they will likely have a good time as a group.
When it comes to children, Indian weddings tend to be more inclusive of kids attending the festivities than other cultures. However, that doesn’t mean you have to always invite everyone with their whole family. You can choose to invite children to select events or if the guests aren’t close to your family, it is ok to invite them without their children. But go over these restrictions with your family before writing in stone (err…paper).
Send Save-the-Dates
We recommend sending a save-the-date card out well in advance to weed out guests who have alternative plans and will not be able to attend your wedding. Then, mail out the first round of wedding invitations (A List) between four and five months prior to the wedding date. Follow that by the second round of invitations (B List) two or three months prior.
In the end it’s all about clear communication with your family and how to send out invites and to whom. This article should get you on the road to invitation planning.