Is "regrets only" tacky? Not a wedding invitation.

spockforprez

Getting things together for the wedding celebration BBQ - about to order invites. It's casual, open house, and about 125 ppl are invited. We already know that many who are invited can't come, and it also seems easier to plan well food- and alcohol-wise by taking the # invited and subtracting anyone who tells us they can't come. That way we are guaranteed to have enough or extra. Thoughts?

OliveOilsMom

I wouldn't do regrets only just due to how large your invite list is.  That is a lot of people to guess about, if they don't actually provide you their regrets, which does happen!

It's not tacky to do regrets only.

LtPowers

spockforprez said:

it also seems easier to plan well food- and alcohol-wise by taking the # invited and subtracting anyone who tells us they can't come. 

Why can't you do that if you get acceptances?

OurWildKingdom

OliveOilsMom said:

I wouldn't do regrets only just due to how large your invite list is.  That is a lot of people to guess about, if they don't actually provide you their regrets, which does happen!

It's not tacky to do regrets only.

Agreed. Not tacky, but definitely not as efficient as it could be.

spockforprez

Thanks, y'all. I guess my thought was we would assume people who didn't respond were coming, and if they didn't, we'd just have extra. Mom is hosting this party and since we're doing phone/email RSVP instead of the online version we had planned for our wedding, I wanted to make things easier on her. 

photokitty

Other than weddings, my family only does regrets only. I agree, it's just easier to know who's not coming and have extra if people end up not coming. It's always been pretty accurate and works well for us. Not tacky at all.

kimmiinthemitten

I think for something more informal it's fine. 

And yay, so excited for you guys to be able to celebrate your wedding with your family and friends!

cowgirl8238

I don't find it tacky at all, however this falls into the know your crowd territory.  While for many events this works, with 125 people you have a potential for A LOT of leftovers.  In my family circle this would be great as everyone (mostly everyone anyway) is really good about communicating if they cannot attend.  With my friends I would be surprised to have even half the people that aren't attending making the call.  Not that they are trying to be rude but I have many friends that wouldn't respond until you follow-up with them.

SP29

cowgirl8238 said:

I don't find it tacky at all, however this falls into the know your crowd territory.  While for many events this works, with 125 people you have a potential for A LOT of leftovers.  In my family circle this would be great as everyone (mostly everyone anyway) is really good about communicating if they cannot attend.  With my friends I would be surprised to have even half the people that aren't attending making the call.  Not that they are trying to be rude but I have many friends that wouldn't respond until you follow-up with them.

Agreed- know your crowd. When we got married, a large number of the family guests on DH's side did not respond, and when prompted by MIL, they said they weren't coming.

A few people fine, but if I were having a large party with most guests not responding, and a lot of people did not attend, that would annoy me.

P.S. Not tacky though.

spockforprez

I ordered them late Saturday night and put regrets only, so I guess what's done is done, lol, but thank you for the feedback @cowgirl8238 & @SP29! I would say at this point we know of around 30 who aren't coming. Extra alcohol can be returned to Total Wine I believe, and extra food... well, maybe we can distribute it between the families. I'm sorta feeling blasé about this party and I think that is affecting my willingness to manage any planning at this stage, lol... and that's how the regrets only idea was born