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Wedding Etiquette Forum
kmw201
member
How many "yes" rsvp's should I expect.
Hi,
This isn't technically an etiquette question but anyway . . . We are limited to a certain # of guests based on the maximum occupancy of the room at our reception venue. Therefore we have an "A" list and "B" list for guests. I was hoping people would share with me how many of our guests will most likely rsvp NO. I feel it's risky to invite everyone on both lists (about 140 people total and maximum # allowed is 100. However I have heard that approx 20% of your guests Usually cannot come. If you would share how many people you invited and how many came I would greatly appreciate it!! Thanks in advance
Additional info-it's a semi destination wedding in Cape Cod, MA. Most of our family and friends live in NY and CT. I do have some family spread out across the west coast so a lot of people will have to travel.
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Re: How many "yes" rsvp's should I expect.
Regardless of how many people you are inviting,
1) Ditch the "B" list. No guest likes being invited to a wedding as a "substitute" for someone else who already RSVPd no. And people can tell when this has happened-when it's very close to the wedding date. "B" listing is very rude and hurtful, so don't do it. Either invite people or don't.
2) Always plan for 100% attendance, because you never know-every single person may just show up, and they'll all be justified in expecting to be fully hosted, regardless of how many people you "expected" to attend.
So if the maximum number allowed is 100, then you need to subtract out you, your FI, your vendors, your immediate family members and wedding party members, and then plan for a guest list no larger than whatever the remaining number of possible persons at your venue is, and plan for all 100% of them to attend.
I admit I was one of those people who invited more than our room would hold because my mom (who was paying) kept insisting that a lot of hubby's out of town family would decline.
It ended up being the most stressful part of my wedding planning (And know when I say this, our original venue closed down a month before we were having invitations printed. I had 1 month to find a venue for a wedding that was only 3 months away. But the over-inviting still trumped that).
Any time I got a 'yes' from someone I expected a 'no' from, rather than being happy that someone was joining us for our wedding, I was freaked out.
I found myself hoping people would say no and was happy when I got unexpected no's.
I'd keep a daily count on the acceptances and make mental projections about what it might end up and it was just bad.
At one point his family had talked about renting a bus and all riding down together and I wanted to die.
It was awful. I felt awful. You don't want to be hoping people say no to your wedding. That's a horrible mindset to be in.
It was more stress than I needed; and we even had a [more expensive] contingency if we went over the room size, and it was still bad, even knowing that.
I have a coworker that expected a small number, but all of his out of town family decided to use the wedding like a family reunion. He had nearly 100%.
Novella mentioned on another thread a wedding she was invited to that was overbooked... the couple started disinviting people which is pretty much the most awful thing a host can do.
Save yourself the stress later down the road and set a guest list now. Pick as many people as you can possibly hold/afford, and make the list no longer than that. Send invites to only those people, all at the same time. It will make life better.
ETA: And as others have said, do NOT send out a second set of invites after people have declined. It is so rude. And they will find out. And they will judge you for it.
And for the love of god please don't B-list. It's really hurtful to know you were an afterthought.
Assume there will be 100% attendance, even if it seems unlikely, and only invite as many people as you can afford to host comfortably and properly. This is why you should never, ever book a venue without a budget and at the very least a rough draft of the guest list.
My other brother - 230 and some invited (my family doesn't do small weddings), 228 attendees.
My FSIL - 112 invited, 113 attendees (since the 7 week old baby wasn't on the invite, but was welcomed)
We're inviting as of now 180 or so, and I figure we'll see that number. Plan for 100% attendance, and kill the B list.
Not inviting children will help cut down your number if you haven't already considered it. We had about 30 potential child guests on our list before we decided to host an adults reception. We've only invited 5 kids, all involved in the wedding and their sibs. The nice thing about that from a capacity standpoint, is people who have children may not attend due to not wanting to leave their kids at home, we've had a couple declines for that. It's disappointing not to have those people, but if you're stuck in this venue with this number crunch, it's an approach you might take. Also, if you're getting married on a holiday weekend (we are) your guest count will be a little lower due to heightened flight costs and the holiday commitments your guests keep elsewhere.
If you haven't sent out save-the-dates yet, send them out sparingly.
If you try to hold off on a couple invites, they still must go out by 6 weeks or it's rude, and you won't have an accurate head count or idea of who's coming by 6 weeks anyway, so it's pointless. I had a couple acquaintances I held off on inviting, and by the six-week mark I still wasn't sure if I wanted to invite them (not due to capacity reasons, I'm just indecisive). But when the six-week mark came around, the ship had sailed and I let it go.
I was recently B-listed for a wedding, got the invite about 3 weeks out with no save-the-date. Found out later the family had two weddings the same day and scrambled to add more guests to this sparsely attended one. It sucked because though I knew I was B-listed and couldn't attend, I still felt obligated to send a present (which I never was thanked for either.)
Do not over invite expecting declines. That rarely ends well as others have attested.
And b-listing is against etiquette. It's super obvious when people do it and incredibly rude.
We had a fairly high decline rate (invited 110, 72 came), but it was OOT for a lot of our friends, most of whom were still in/ just finished school, and it was at the beginning of January. So a lot of declines had to do with holiday travel and finances. But there were still a bunch of people who came who we were pleasantly surprised could come (we wanted them there, but if we had to think about it, we thought it would have been them who declined). We still didn't go and B-list to fill in the spots, we just took that as money we could save instead of spend (because of that, we were under budget on the wedding).
My friend just got married yesterday (Sunday of a long weekend here). She had 100% attendance.
Remember that the venue capacity also counts yourself, your FI and all your vendors.
May I also suggest, that even if the venue capacity is 100, if you are still a ways out from sending invites that you do not lock down your guest list now at 100- save yourself some room. You never know who could start a new relationship, or if you make some new friends.
We have had people come on here who created a guest list to their max, and then made some new friends at work a couple months out whom they wanted to invite and were wondering if/how they could B-list. Save yourself some room!
The other option, is find a different venue that gives you more wiggle room and you can make your final decision when invitations are ready to go out.
However, you did say your mom has some people "she wouldn't mind inviting" if there is space... those are people I wouldn't consider inviting. It sounds like these people are not YOUR VIPs, so I would save yourself the stress and take them off the list now.
We invited a total of 135 guests, from my side of the family we were expecting 10 declines, I got 4 declines. On my in law side, I think it was about 80 guests that we invited & were told, don't worry, at least 30% (24 people) will decline. Nope, only 4 declined. So basically, plan for 100% and don't over invite what you can fit into your venue or that you can afford to host.
In regards to B listing, ok to have a B list for save the dates, the people you aren't sure if you are going to invite or not. But once it comes down to sending out invites, you really can't have a B list because by time you start getting your declines in, it's too late to send out invites to guest without them knowing that they are second string guests.