A guest should not become five different records in five different tools
The master list is designed to prevent the common planning problem where one spreadsheet says 242 guests, the caterer has 236, the seating chart has 239 and transportation is working from an older version. Keep the person once, then let each planning task read the details it needs.
Households
Keep families and couples grouped while still storing each individual person separately.
Event-specific attendance
A guest can attend the ceremony but not the reception, or be invited only to a pre-wedding function.
Food details
Meal choices and dietary notes stay attached to the person who needs them.
Logistics
Hotel and shuttle notes make destination and multi-venue planning easier.
Use a different count for every event
A Maiyan, Jaggo, Anand Karaj, reception and farewell brunch do not necessarily have the same guest list. The event controls above let you track those differences instead of forcing one total guest number across the entire celebration.
- Keep each person in the master list only once
- Mark event attendance separately
- Use confirmed counts for final catering deadlines
- Use invited + attending counts earlier in planning
- Export a backup before final vendor handoffs