How Many Invitations to send??

Mkeagen

My fiance and I are getting married in Baltimore, MD next June. My family is from NY and his is from NJ. We both have huge families and expect to invite about 50 people on each side (100 family members total). That being said, besides our friends who are in Baltimore, about 85% of our wedding guests will be traveling for our wedding. If we want to keep our final guest list around 150, how many wedding invitations should we send out? Keep in mind that since 85% will be traveling, it may deter some extended family members from attending. What do you think, brides??! Thanks for the help!

aimers1525

I think your question is only answered by you and your FI, and it's not how many invitations to send out.  Your question is who are we inviting?

There's really no way to know how many people will be able to attend or not.  If you send out 150 invitations, 150 people might reply "yes" or only 50 people may reply "yes".  So, you and your FI need to decide who to invite based on how many people your venue can accomodate and how many people you can afford to pay for.  If you feel you can only afford to pay for/accomodate 150 people then you should only invite 150 people.

juma1111

Ditto PP, only you and your FI know your guest list and how likely people will be to come. Some will tell you the rule is to plan that 100% will attend and yes there is always the possibility that they might all show up, but only you guys know how likely that is.

andreamarie77

Only invite the number of people your venue can hold and that you can afford. Don't invite someone based on the fact that they "might" not come. You never know how many people are going to figure out a way to be there since it's your wedding.

We set a max number of 150 when we started planning - by the time we sent out invites, it was up to 184. I thought my mom was going to have a heart attack. Luckily, we are well under the original 150 with all the replies. Yes, most of the OOT people are not coming. But we planned as if everyone we invited would show up.

MrsLiggett7

Just because you plan on inviting 150 PEOPLE does not mean you will be sending out 150 INVITATIONS.

The easiest way is to use The Knot's Guestlist thing. You can input all the people you want to invite, separate them into Groom's side and Bride's side, and then when you hit the "summary" button it will tell you how many invitations you will be sending. I am inviting about 150 people but I only have 65 invitations to send out.

LuckyHeather

If 150 is your maximum, only invite 150.