Sending Late Invitations?

nihmm

Help!  Need advice...

My wedding is October 2nd.

We invited 125 people (including us) and guarraunteed 100 people for the reception.  We figured that this was more than enough - but my brother has gotten in a fight with my parents, and he told us today that his entire family (7 people) is now not coming to the wedding.

We have realized that we may not meet our minimum number because of this.  It is also making a somewhat lopsided wedding - I invited 46 people, 2 of whom I knew were not coming, and he invited 77 - very lopsided.

I have extra invitations, but they would be going out very late - reply requested by September 10th on the RSVP cards.  Our original invitations were sent a month ago.

Should I send out a few extra invites, or avoid the ettiquette problem and accept that we may have less than 100 people?

Thanks!

noodle_oo

Eek, that sucks!  I wouldn't send out more invitations now since having less than 2 weeks to the reply date just screams "we're on the B list!".   Unless you can have new RSVP cards drawn up with a new date, I woudnl't do it.  I'd feel pretty second rate getting that late of an invitation.

Do you think you'll make up with your brother before the wedding?  You have some time.  That would be really sad of him to miss your wedding.  And you wouldn't want to replace his seats in case he decides to come later on.

HisCB

i dont think its too late for Blisters. but Id be concerned with people who know eachother, id hate for someone to mention getting their invite back in august when some people arent getting theirs til sept.

i do hope that you and brother make up before the wedding though.

ETA
my wedding is 10-10 and my rsvp date is 9-10 and i still have a stack of invitations that i am waiting on addresses for.

nihmm

It's not me that my brother is having problems with - it's my parents - so I don't have a lot of control to solve their issues.  They've had a rocky relationship for years.  I hoped that there wouldn't be a blow up around the wedding, but it's not to be, unfortunately.

I thought sending out invitations at this point would look tacky, too...I think I'm stuck...

brookelynpaisley

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_sending-late-invitations?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:aeef67eb-f537-40f3-9173-0e8e833b850aPost:45090bea-6aa2-4602-b05e-c6fe408108c2">Re: Sending Late Invitations?</a>:
[QUOTE]i dont think its too late for Blisters. but Id be concerned with people who know eachother, id hate for someone to mention getting their invite back in august when some people arent getting theirs til sept. i do hope that you and brother make up before the wedding though. ETA <strong>my wedding is 10-10 and my rsvp date is 9-10</strong> and i still have a stack of invitations that i am waiting on addresses for.
Posted by HisCB[/QUOTE]

That's in 13 days. That just screams B list, even if you were to get them in the mail today. Why not just call them at this point? Sheesh.

brookelynpaisley

To answer your question, OP, I would not send out invitations at this point. You have to pay for 100 anyway, and the people you send to might not even get you to 100. Plus you run the chance of offending them when they perceive a late invitation as an after though. Just let it go.

marisah83

I would just pay for the 100 and hope that your brother can work things out with your parents.  Don't B list people. 

As for things being lopsided...I'm having 8 people coming on my side.  FI has 50.  His family is a lot bigger than mine and live closer to the venue.  It doesn't matter how many are on each side as long as you have the people you care about there.

[Deleted User]

Don' t send out invites for the b-listers. I would talk to your venue about doing something like what pp said or just eat the fact that you may not meet the minimum. We did not choose a venue with a minimum for this very reason - I just know my family way too well.

kristinanddan

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_sending-late-invitations?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:aeef67eb-f537-40f3-9173-0e8e833b850aPost:45090bea-6aa2-4602-b05e-c6fe408108c2">Re: Sending Late Invitations?</a>:
[QUOTE]i dont think its too late for Blisters. but Id be concerned with people who know eachother, id hate for someone to mention getting their invite back in august when some people arent gett<strong>ing theirs til sept. i do hope that you and brother make up before the wedding though. ETA my wedding is 10-10 and my rsvp date is 9-10 and i still have a stack of invitations that i am waiting on addresses for.</strong>
Posted by HisCB[/QUOTE]

That's terrible

HisCB

we have requested all of their addresses from them. they knew they were invited, and no-one in the stack would even care. but yes, we need to get them out soon.

jakstr0808

I don't know if this applies in your situtation.......but our original guest list was about 250 people for a venue that can only hold 175.  So we cut it down to about 209, and made a small B-list of people that we didn't want to completely not invite.  However, our response date is 9/5 (wedding 10/3) and we realized we're really not going to get enough No's before it's really too late to send the "b-list" out even though they would never know they were on a blist (besides the lateness) because they don't know anyone who already got an invite.

So we scrapped the b-list but since our list was so large to begin wtih we were pretty strict about the plus one policy (guests only got one if they wouldn't know anyone or were engaged/married).  We're still expecting a lot more no's from distant family so after the rsvps are all in, if we're way under we're going to just call friends that didn't get a plus one and tell them they could bring a guest if they'd like.  

nihmm

We're thinking of doing that as well.

We should be close to the minimum; with the potential responses that are left we could hit 107, but we invited about five people with guests that may not bring one - wife is temporarily in another state far away, etc.  So we should be close, hopefully.

We don't have a space problem - our venue can actually fit a lot more people than we are inviting, which is why we're having some issues with a minimum.  We would have invited more people - I thought there would be family tension, but not to the point that my brother's entire family just wouldn't show up!

Thanks, everyone!

brookelynpaisley

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_sending-late-invitations?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:aeef67eb-f537-40f3-9173-0e8e833b850aPost:fe6138b8-4eb0-4ce4-98de-8ffbf54067f8">Re: Sending Late Invitations?</a>:
[QUOTE]we have requested all of their addresses from them. they knew they were invited, and no-one in the stack would even care. but yes, we need to get them out soon.
Posted by HisCB[/QUOTE]

That doesn't make it any better. They can "know" they were invited, but if they don't get an invite, they may think you were just blowing smoke up their asses like "oh, sure you can come to our wedding. ::wink wink::" Call these poor people and verbally invite them and get their address at the same time so you can send the invitation to confirm the verbal information.

kbmeow

My wedding is lopsided.  6 tables his side 4 tables mine.  Not a big deal.  And if you are under the amount of people see if the venue will let you use the money elsewhere at the recepetion.

Meagan78

We are set for 10-10 and our reply date is Sept. 1.  We JUST got an invitation back in the mail (they went out in mid-July!)  And, after talking with his Dad, it appears several people didn't get their invites.  Damn USPS!!  So we are going to have to resend them but will add personal notes.  You could always do this and say something like "USPS just returned a whole batch of invites - we are horrified.  Please take another week or so on the RSVP."