We are getting married in May at an overnight camp. We are really excited about our plan, but now that I am starting to try and figure out how to tell the guests our plan and how to get RSVPs... I am starting to re-think our numbers.
Our original plan was to invite about 50 people to the wedding and they would spend the whole weekend at the camp. Starting with a BBQ Friday night, camp activities (boating, zip-lining, etc.) Saturday morning into the early afternoon, and then the ceremony and reception would be Saturday evening/night. Then we would stay at the camp Saturday night and leave Sunday morning after a brunch at the camp.
After discussing some things with family members, we realized there are about 20 extended family members (aunts and uncles) that we should/would invite to the ceremony and reception... but not the Friday night BBQ or the camp activities. They are all older and would not participate in the camp activities and we imagine they would not be comfortable staying in camp cabins so we would block off hotel rooms nearby for them. It also comes down to budget as well. If we invite the entire extended family for the whole weekend, that is 20 additional people at each meal.
Last detail... we are doing all digital communication and paperless invitations.
So the question is... how do we tell the original guest list about the full weekend but the extended family about just the ceremony and reception? We would obviously need RSVPs for the Friday night BBQ and Saturday's ceremony/reception. And we need to know how many people are staying in the cabins for both nights. We expect that most of our original list will stay for both nights, but we would still need exact totals, especially for the meals. But we would also need RSVPs for the extended family who are just invited to the ceremony and reception. I had originally hoped I could include all of the information about the whole weekend on my wedding website, but then realized that if the extended family members see that, they may get upset or confused. And how do I do multiple RSVPs on my website? Do we send out 2 separate invites? Or separate invites for each individual meal/event of the weekend? And I am now wondering if we should even invite the extended family and should just stick with our original plan? We are paying for the wedding ourselves, so it's really up to us, but we know how much our aunts and uncles would want to be at the ceremony.
Long story short... we need some advice on where to go from here! Thanks in advance!!!