Guest list help

AerikaAwright

Hey ladies, since you guys have had your weddings I thought I would ask for some guest list help. How many extra people would you say you should invite? Our venue holds 150, but my FI and I were thinking about inviting about 175 people do you think that's a good idea?

Beachy730

No.  As much as it sucks, you need to plan on 100% attendance and invite accordingly.  What will you do if you invite 175 and 165 respond yes? 

The only way I think you can over-invite is if you know for a fact that people aren't coming (OOT people who have already said they can't travel, or people you know for a fact are going away) and you are sending them invites anyway. 

It sucks, and its something that most people, myself included, end up saying afterwards that they wish they would have invited more.  But unless you want to leave yourself facing the dilemma of "we don't have enough room for all these people coming" then you need to cut down your list to 150. 

Theresa626

That's a terrible idea.  i would invite 150 people ONLY.  No more.  Some people get one hundred percent attendance for their weddings.  Some people even get over that.  What would you do if that happened to you?  Sometimes guests just bring people that weren't invited.  Sometimes, someone will get engaged and then you have to invite them with another person.  Never invite more people then your venue allows.  

AerikaAwright

thanks guys

bellaxanthe

Also remember to count yourselves and your vendors too that will be eating. I miscalculated mine by 10 because of this and now I am tight!

Theresa626

My vendors actually ate in another room separate from the guests.  I did not know this till the week of the wedding but you should ask your venue how they seat vendors because you might not have to plan for them.  

Robyn5298

I've heard the general rule is to expect 80% of those invited to accept the invitation, and that's pretty much right where my attendance turned out to be.  If your room has limited seating I definitely wouldn't risk inviting more though!

If you can send your invitations out early enough, you can have a "B" list of guests that you can begin inviting once you receive some regret cards from your A list.  This can be trickly though, you can really only do this if your B list gets their invitations in the mail early enough so they don't feel like they were secondary.  You don't want anyone to know they "didn't make the cut" so to speak.

megandjay

We got the average 20% decline, BUT I wouldn't invite more people than your venue can hold since you never know! I do know other brides who have had close to 100% acceptance. I think it depends on if you have a lot of OOT guests and what time of year (ie, are there other things going on that day).