Paste your names (one household per line) or upload the sheet you already have. You get a clean households → guests table with plus-ones and kids marked, live counts, a CSV for Google Sheets or Numbers, a printable checklist, and a blank template. Nothing is uploaded — it all runs in your browser.
Free, no account. Made by Vowlist — the guest list, budget and checklist are free; the RSVP link is $79 once, no subscription.
Rules the splitter knows: The Harrisons: Tom, Jane, Billy · Priya & Sam · Mike Jones +1 · (2 kids) · "Jr." stays with the name. Email, phone and address columns are ignored, never imported.
Blank template instead? .xlsx (Excel / Numbers) · .csv (Google Sheets) — same four columns, tick-box columns, a Households tab with counts.
| Household | Guests | Save-the-date | Invitation | RSVP |
|---|
Made with the free Vowlist guest-list template · getvowlist.com/free/wedding-guest-list-template
Most guest-list templates give you one row per person and stop there. That is fine for counting chairs and useless for everything else: invitations go to households, reply cards come back from households, and the awkward questions ("are the kids invited?", "does he get a plus-one?") are decided per household. So this template thinks in two levels — household → guests — and keeps the per-person flags (plus-one slot, child) on the guest rows where they belong.
It also matches how online RSVPs work when they are done well. In Vowlist every household gets its own link: the family opens it, sees only their names, taps who is coming, picks meals, done — no account, no app, and they never see anyone else's answers. A list that is already grouped by household imports in one tap and gives you those links straight away.
Write everyone down first — the splitter above does not care how messy the paste is. Then mark three tiers in your head (or add a column in the sheet): A = we can't imagine the day without them; B = we would love to have them if the numbers work; C = obligation or "it would be nice". Count A. If A already fills the venue, B and C wait for regrets from A. If A leaves room, invite B with the first wave and hold C. The counts strip above updates as you delete or move people, so you can see what each cut buys you.
Two things stop couples from doing this honestly: parents' lists and reciprocity ("they invited us"). Give each set of parents a fixed number of households, not people — households are what cost you a table — and treat reciprocity as a B, not an A.
Decide the rule before anyone asks: married, engaged and long-term partners are invited by name; single guests get a plus-one when they won't know anyone else there is the version most couples land on. Then say it plainly and once. Wording that has worked on details cards and RSVP pages:
"We have reserved [N] seats in your honour." — and the RSVP form lists exactly those names.
"To keep the day intimate, we can only accommodate the guests named on your invitation."
Put the number of seats on the reply itself, not in a footnote — a per-household RSVP link makes this automatic because the guest only sees their own names.
Whatever you decide, decide it for everyone (with at most one named exception, like your own nieces and nephews). If children are not invited, the clearest line is "We love your little ones, but this will be an adults-only celebration." If they are, mark them as children on the list — caterers price them differently and you will want the count separately, which is why the template keeps a child flag per guest instead of guessing from names.
Some guests will decline — more of them when many must travel, when the date sits on a holiday weekend, or when the invitation goes out late. We are deliberately not quoting a percentage here: we have no dated source for one, and your list is not an average — a local wedding of mostly close family can run near full acceptance, a destination wedding far below it. The honest method is to invite the number you can host, watch the real replies come in, and release the B list on a date you set in advance. The RSVP deadline calculator works that date backwards from your wedding day.
Both — this page reads what Sheets exports (paste the cells straight in, or upload the CSV) and gives it back with households, plus-ones and kids marked. If you like living in a spreadsheet, download the .xlsx template: it has the same four columns, tick-box columns for save-the-date / invitation / RSVP, and a Households tab with the counts.
Vowlist: tap "Save this list to a free Vowlist account" (one-tap import after you sign in, no card), or upload the CSV on the Guests page later. Other apps generally accept a CSV — check their import help for the column names they expect; the four columns here are the plain ones (household, guest, plus_one, child), so renaming a header is usually all it takes.
Yes — in your own sheet, add any columns you like to the right; the printable checklist and the .xlsx have space for notes. Vowlist ignores email, phone and address columns on import by design: guests get one link per household, no app or account, and we never email or message them, so we simply don't store their contact details.
The people who get one invitation and reply together — a couple, a family with kids, one person and their plus-one, or a single guest. Everything about RSVPs is easier per household: one link, one reply, one line on the seating plan.
It became a slot named "Guest of Mike" flagged as a plus-one. Rename it once you know the name; in Vowlist the guest types it themselves when they RSVP.
No. Parsing, editing, the CSV and the printable checklist all happen in your browser. The only time anything leaves your device is if you tap "Save this list to a free Vowlist account" — then it goes into your own account after you sign in.
Save it to a free Vowlist account and it becomes your working guest list — households, plus-ones, kids, search, CSV export — free forever, no card. When you want guests to reply online, the RSVP page is $79 once: one link per household, no app or account for guests, we never email them, and everything exports. See the guest page →