Your wedding guest list should be big, no, make that huge! Your marriage may depend upon it! Let me explain.
A couple of professors at Emory University conducted a study on weddings and marriage. One of their findings was pretty amazing. The more people you invite to your wedding, the more likely your marriage will be successful.
A couple that invites ten people to their wedding is 35% less likely to ever get divorced than a couple who exchange vows without any guests.
Even more dramatically, couples that invite more than 200 guests are 92% less likely to get divorced than couples with no guests.
A large wedding guest list is a good idea
As you review the graph above, you can see that at every level, the more guests you invite, the less likely you’ll ever get divorced. One of the researchers, Randy Olson, explained why:
“Clearly, this shows us that having a large group of family and friends who support the marriage is critically important to long-term marital stability.”
In other words, when you have a large group of family and friends, they have a vested interest in your well-being. They help provide the emotional “safety net” to nurture and sustain your fledgling family over the years.
Remember these wise African proverbs
To quote an African proverb, “it takes a village.”
To quote another African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together.”
Community matters to your marriage as you travel on your new journey together.
Last month’s blogpost dispensed wedding guest list advice. We focused on practical ways to cut your list down to size to accommodate your wedding budget. However, in light of this research, perhaps conventional thinking is backward. Perhaps the proper way to plan your wedding is that your wedding budget needs to accommodate your guest list, not the other way around.
It’s more important to get your community out in full force for your life-changing wedding celebration, even if you need to cut back a little on the menu or the flowers. The love and prayers your “community” brings to your marriage is more important than a sit-down dinner verses a buffet.
Scott Stevens Entertainment offers a full palate of wedding entertainment options that are easily customizable to fit your budget. You never have to scrimp on the fun with Scott Stevens Entertainment!
So invite away!
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