Deciding Who to Invite to Your Wedding (Where Do You Draw the Line?)

There are many considerations when deciding who to invite to your wedding. You and your partner will need to discuss your vision for the day and if you are hoping for a small and intimate celebration or a large gathering of all your family and friends. Which one of these wedding size categories sounds right for you?

Elopement
Eloping will feature only the couple and legally required witnesses. Most elopements qualify as “nano weddings,” meaning they typically have ten guests or fewer and are very light on the wedding plans.

Micro Wedding
A micro wedding is a planned wedding with a guest list of fewer than fifty people. It may serve brunch instead of dinner.

Small Wedding
Anything up to one hundred guests is considered a small wedding. Although more scaled-down than the average wedding, small weddings still have all the traditional accoutrements like invitations, RSVPs, a venue, catering, flowers, photography, and more.

Medium Wedding
One hundred to two hundred guests are considered a medium-sized wedding, which is where most Milwaukee weddings fall. (According to The Wedding Report, the average guest count for a Milwaukee area wedding hovered around 135.)

Grand Wedding
If you host over two hundred guests, you have a large or “grand wedding.” A larger guest count will require a larger venue and a bigger budget.

Your desired wedding size and guest list may be affected by:

• Tricky family dynamics
• Budget constraints
• The capacity of your chosen venue

The most common ways to choose the guest list are by quantity (each side invites a set number of people) or family criteria (yes to aunts, uncles, and first cousins, but drawing the line at second cousins, for example). Some couples will focus on relationship dynamics and only invite the people who have been the most supportive to their relationship rather than feeling obligated to invite someone just because of family or social pressures.

We recommend that you and your partner make a list of whom you absolutely will invite. After that, choosing the rest of the guest list may require you and your partner to compromise. As with all wedding decisions, this can be good practice for married life! Even if you invite two hundred people to your wedding, it can feel intimate if they are those you truly feel close to.

Once you decide who to invite, you can start designing your save-the-date cards and invitations, book your venue, and talk to caterers. You can find ideas and explore options at Wisconsin’s longest-running and most prestigious bridal expo: the 58th Annual Wonderful World of Weddings Show. Mark your calendar for January 2026!