A wedding planning spreadsheet where the guest list drives the money
In a spreadsheet where the guest list and budget aren’t linked, you carry the number across by hand. This one links them. Each household is a row with a party size, a tier, a reply, meals and a table, and those rows become the head count, your live guest count. Choose whether that count means everyone invited, your expected turnout or only confirmed replies, and every per-guest line reprices from that single cell.
The chain keeps going. The budget feeds the vendor payments, the payments feed the months, and the months feed each person who is paying. There are 11 tabs, and they read as one line of reasoning rather than eleven separate lists.
What does cutting guests really save?
A common shortcut is average cost per guest, but that average misleads: it includes the venue, the band and everything else that does not change when a guest stays home. So multiplying it by the people you might cut promises more than a cut can deliver.
The Guest Cut Calculator reprices every budget line at the smaller count, honoring minimum guarantees and whole tables, and reports the dollars. In the fictional example wedding, cutting 12 guests saves $2,064, not the $4,789 that average cost would have promised. It also finds the fewest cuts that reach your budget ceiling (the most you want to spend), shows what dropping every guest you marked tier B saves, and lays out the saving step by step. Your own figures depend on your own quotes and minimums.
See every quote with tax and service included
A quote may not be the full price. Each budget line takes the price the vendor wrote, adds the tax and service rates you enter, and shows what one unit really costs. Lines can be per-guest, per-table or fixed, with minimum guarantees where a contract has them. Every line then carries four stages: Planned, Latest quote, Contracted and Paid.
When a number moves, the budget tells you why. It separates what the vendor changed from what your head count changed, and when one quote alone pushes you over your ceiling, it names that quote.
Track vendor payments and when the money is due
You type deposits and milestones. The final balance is computed from the forecast, so on per-guest and per-table lines it moves with the head count until you pay it. Overdue and upcoming payments flag themselves, and the Dashboard lists the next 8.
Cash by Month then shows when the money actually leaves. It covers 24 months, with a meter and a chart, and flags the peak month and any month where payments bunch. Seeing the bunching early leaves time to plan for it.
Who pays what, and when
If family is helping, the workbook shows who owes what and when. Up to 6 contributors each get a column by month. A starting split seeds each pledge, a dated log records money actually handed over, and the workbook names the first month each person’s pledge, and each person’s received money, runs short.
Guest list, seating and a dated checklist
The everyday pieces are here too. The Guest List holds up to 400 household rows with replies, meals and notes. Seating compares each table’s capacity with who is seated and totals meals per table for the caterer; it is a table-by-table count rather than a drag-and-drop chart. The Timeline is a checklist of 56 tasks, each dated from your wedding date, so a new date moves the whole list.
Three PDFs come with it: a Start Here guide, a Vendor Quote Playbook with the questions to ask before you sign, and Printable Planning Sheets, including a hidden-costs checklist of 16 questions.
Yours to keep, in Excel or Google Sheets
The download is an Excel workbook (.xlsx) plus a file named “Open in Google Sheets.pdf”. Click the link inside it, choose “Make a copy”, and a native Google Sheets copy is yours, with no import step. It is built for Excel, Google Sheets and LibreOffice; if Excel opens it in Protected View, click Enable Editing so the formulas calculate. It opens on a fictional example wedding so you can see every number working, and the guide shows you how to replace it with your own. Money cells are formatted in US dollars.
No Ardent Workshop account and no subscription. It is a planning tool, not financial, legal or vendor advice; the tax rates, service charges and contract terms are the ones you enter from your own quotes.
Want to try the idea first? The free Wedding Guest-Count Budget Calculator is a small taste of the same method.
