How do you keep track of 100 wedding guests flying in from all over the place?
I’m Tom, I started EventRide. Over the last few months I’ve spoken to alot of destination wedding planners, and when I ask what the hardest bit is the answer is nearly always the same. It’s not the flowers or the venue. It’s the guests.
Specifically, who’s arriving when, on what flight, and where they’re staying. With 30 guests you can do that on a spreadsheet no problem. With 100 guests flying in from ten different countries over four days, its basically a full-time job on top of the actual wedding.
Where it goes wrong
From what planners have told me it tends to break in three places.
Guests reply late. People book flights months after the invite goes out, so the details come in one at a time, if at all, and you end up chasing.
Things change. A flight moves, someone swaps hotel, and nobody tells the spreadsheet.
Everyone has a different version. The planner has one, the couple has another one and the venue has a third. None of them match.
What the good ones do
From what I’ve seen, the planners who have this sorted all do roughly the same things.
They ask each guest once, in one place. One page per guest with their flight, their hotel and the plan for the weekend. If something changes the guest updates it there, not in a WhatsApp at 11pm.
They watch flights, not inboxes. If a flight lands two hours late you want to know before the guest messages you about it.
They look at who’s staying where. When you can see 14 guests are at the same hotel and landing within an hour of each other, planning the welcome drinks gets a whole lot easier.
And they give the couple a view, not the spreadsheet. The couple want to know who’s coming and when. They don’t need the working file and honestly it just stresses them out.
Four questions, that’s it
Every extra question you ask, you lose replies. I’d keep it to four:
- When are you arriving and on which flight
- Where are you staying
- When are you leaving
- Any dietary needs
Ask them once, let guests update them when plans change and you’re most of the way there.
Why I built EventRide
This is the problem I wanted to fix. EventRide is an AI-enabled platform for destination weddings and events. Guest management for the planner, a dashboard for the couple and a personal page for every guest, with multiple useful features, such as live flight tracking and travel & accommodation matching.
If you plan destination weddings and want to see it, have a look at the demo or book a quick call, opens in a new tab. I’m always happy to chat, even if it’s just to compare notes on spreadsheets.
Tom