Grading a Destination Wedding Guest List

Destination weddings average a 60 to 70 percent attendance rate compared to 80 to 90 percent for local weddings. Plan your catering and venue layout for the lower end of your expected range.

Use a personal link from iDoTogether that each household fills out themselves. International guests can enter their full address in their country's format, and you can add the country column manually when standardizing for your stationer.

Most destination wedding couples do both: a physical save-the-date as soon as the date is set (12 to 18 months out) and digital invitations with RSVP link. This reduces address collection pressure since digital-only RSVPs do not require mailing addresses.

The base format is the same, but you may want to add columns for accommodation type, hotel block room number, arrival date, departure date, and whether the guest is attending additional events like the rehearsal dinner or day-after brunch.

Update their RSVP status to Declined and note the reason in a notes column. If they cancel after your catering cutoff, you may still owe the per-plate cost, but your venue may adjust for a documented cancellation.

Yes. Your CSV is analyzed entirely in your browser using JavaScript. No data is uploaded to any server, ever. You can verify this by disconnecting from the internet before uploading.

Currently we support .csv files. If your data is in Excel (.xlsx), Google Sheets, or Numbers, export it as a CSV first.

Your grade is a weighted score based on column coverage (30%), data completeness (50%), and data quality (20%). An A means your list is wedding ready. A C or below means there are gaps that could cause problems. The grader checks for 22 standard wedding planning columns, including RSVP status, meal choice, table assignments, invitation tracking, and address fields used by venues and caterers.

The fastest way is to import your list into iDoTogether. Each household gets a personal link you can text or email. Guests fill in their own address, RSVP, meal choice, and dietary restrictions from their phone. No spreadsheet editing required. Most couples go from a D to an A in 48 hours without touching a single cell.

It gets expensive fast. Returned mail costs $2 to $3 per piece (stamp + envelope + reprint). Duplicate names mean double invitation suites at $4+ each. Missing emails mean you can't send digital RSVPs, so you're chasing people by phone. Missing meal choices mean your caterer adds a buffer charge. Most couples don't discover these gaps until the week invitations ship.

Absolutely. Planners use the grader to audit client lists before handoff to stationers and caterers. Many recommend iDoTogether to their couples as the collection tool because it eliminates the back and forth of chasing guests for addresses and RSVPs.

Manually auditing a 150 person guest list takes 30 to 60 minutes and you'll still miss things. The grader checks 22 columns, detects duplicates via fuzzy matching, flags partial addresses, and calculates fill rates, all in about 10 seconds.

Completely free, no account required. We built this to help couples planning their wedding. If you want to take it further, iDoTogether has a free tier for up to 50 guests and a one time $99 upgrade for unlimited.