Invitations - How many to send?

lauravamich

My fiancee and I are having a destination wedding, 4 hours away from where we live, which means most friends will have a 4 hour drive and 1/2 the family members will be coming from out of state.  We can only have 50 people at the reception due to the size of the facility.  Any suggestions on how many people we should actually send invitations to?  What percentage of people that get invited to destination weddings go?  50%, 75%? Thanks!

Night_Sprite

Plan for everyone.  If you have to, have an A list and B list.

CubsGirl05

um, 50? FFS if you can only have 50 people max, you only invite 50 people. This ain't rocket science.

AlexiaANDRobert

Ditto Sprite.  If you have room for 50, invite 50. I'm not a huge B List fan because I feel someone will figure it out unless you don't do STDs. GL!

ggmae

Well, send invitations to 50 people but not 1 for every person. If 2+ people live in the same house, address the invite to all of them. Everyone 18+ gets their own invite though. We invited around 150 people and only had 75-80 invites.

ggmae

Oh and as others said, plan for 100% showing.

danieliza1127

Well being only 4 hours away, I wouldn't even call it a destination wedding and I bet you would have pretty much everyone you invite attend.  Even those coming from out of state will come unless it's a popular holiday weekend when they might already have plans, like Christmas or something.  Always plan for 100% attendance.  It does happen.  If you can only have 50, invite 50.  If people decline, you can quickly send out a few more invitations to your B list people if needed.

MOBinFL2008

If the venue can only hold 50 people, then you can only invite 48 guests.  You have to plan on 100% attendance.  What happens if you plan on 50% attendance, invite 100, and all 100 respond "Yes"?  You'd be back on here, crying about what to do and asking how to uninvite guests.

ac_in_dc

I'd send save-the-dates to the 50 people you absolutely must invite.  You can do this soon.  I'm guessing you'll get a pretty high response rate (almost 100%) with that small a # of invitees.  If anyone indicates that they won't make the wedding, you can replace them with another person. Of course, you can't actually require someone to RSVP until a month before your wedding, but if you send STD's they may let you know informally about their plans.

lyndausvi

invite 48 people (you need 2 spots for you and your FI)

lauravamich

Thanks everybody for your comments.  One thing I probably wasn't clear on is that 25 of the people being invited live a minimum of 10 hours away if driving.  I will send the save the date cards to get a better idea on who will be coming from out of state.

ac_in_dc

remember, you can't require an rsvp on save the dates, but it can give you an informal sense of who is coming and who isn't.  Plans still change for people!! So maybe you should wait to send the STDs...like 6 months before the wedding? Then if you get some definite "nos" you can expand your list beyond 50. To be honest, though, the 50 closest people to FI and I are all coming unless they're deployed or too sick to travel. 

laurening

You have to plan for 100% attendance. If you play the attendance game you'll find yourself up a creek without a paddle. Smaller weddings tend to have a higher attendance rate because the guests are all family or close friends who are more likely to go out of their way to attend. Also, I'd be reluctant to use the STDs as a gauge. Remember, everyone who gets an STD should get an invitation even if they say they won't be attending when they get the STD. It can be hard to know what you will or won't do 6 months+ prior. People change their plans all the time. You can send your invitations out a few weeks earlier than normal since most people will need to get a hotel. Hopefully, the guests who know they won't be attending will respond right away and you'll have enough time to send out invitations to a few extra people without it being obvious that you have a B list.