We all know that putting together a guest list can be one of the most challenging aspects of planning a wedding. But once you’ve crossed that hurdle, you can get onto the fun stuff, like booking your venue and ordering your save the dates or invitations!

When it comes to ordering your invitations, your stationer will of course ask you how many you need. Now this may seem like a simple question, but you’d be surprised how many couples get this part wrong and either end up with way too many or not enough.  So here are a few things to remember:

You only need one invitation per household

When you go to order your wedding invitations, you probably by default assume that ‘total number of guests = total number of invitations’ but unless all of your guests are coming alone, it’s unlikely that this will be the case. Go through your guest list and group them by household, then you’ll know exactly how many invitations you need to send.

Order plenty of spare invitations

Once you know how many households you’ve got on your list, you’ll want to start thinking about how many spares you might need. Here are a few things to consider:

Spare invitations for your backup guest list

This won’t apply to everyone but I’m sure some of you might have a ‘backup’ list of guests you’ll invite if the people on your initial list can’t make it, so make sure to have enough spares for those, just in case.

Keep a spare invitation for your photographer

Your photographer will most certainly be taking photos of your wedding details on the day, and you’ll want to make sure you’ve got an invitation set there for them to include!

Allocate a spare invitation for you to keep

Your invitations are one of the only tangible things from your wedding that you can keep forever, so make sure to order an extra one or two as special keepsakes.

Spares for DIY mishaps

If you’re doing any DIY stationery elements, e.g. wax seals or calligraphy etc.. you’ll want to make sure you’ve got plenty of spares in case of any mistakes.

It may seem a bit over the top, but ensuring you’ve considered all of the above when working out your quantities will help save any headaches later down the line. You’ll also save some money, as most stationers have a minimum order quantity, and smaller quantities can end up being pretty pricey to produce.

Don’t forget about evening invitations 

If you’re inviting more guests to your evening reception, you’ll want to make sure you order separate invitations for those too (keeping the above things in mind, of course!)

Hopefully these tips will help you figure out how many invitations you need to order for your wedding.

If you need help writing your invitation wording next, check out my handy blog post about what information to include here.