I have been lurking here for over a year, and only recently started posting, but I knew early on that I needed to be mindful of etiquette. I have tried really hard to be polite to my (potential) guests.
We sent invitations at 8 weeks, RSVPs due 4/30. I waited a few days, then started making calls to the 30% of people who did not respond.
When I called my mom to get phone numbers for her friends on the list who had not replied, she told me that one of her friends, "Leslie," had called her a few weeks prior upset that her adult daughter had not been invited. Granted, these are friends of the family, but I have had no interaction with the daughter in years, and she's 13 years older than I am, so we're not friends. Apparently the daughter had also expressed disbelief that she was not invited.
Fast forward to present, I call Leslie to ask about her RSVP. She does promptly call me back, and says that yes, she will be attending. She had not responded, though, because she was waiting to see if her husband would join her. If not, she was bringing the daughter. Lovely. Well, her husband is coming, so no need to argue.
So I ask, I just need to know if you'd both like chicken or pasta. "What kind of pasta?," she asks. I say a penne with a tomato-based sauce. First, the is disgusted that I would have red sauce at a wedding. "I can just see that being a disaster." But the chicken? "I am just so tired of chicken."
Fantastic.
This came just on the heels of finding out that one of our guests thought our invitations (printed on pearlized white paper, with metallic foil) were hideous. She actually used the word "hate," just because they were shiny. Can't please them all, I guess.
Update (also in comments):
Oh, I forgot to add (this is the best part!), the same guest, Leslie,
also called my mom when she received the invitation and asked, "Is this
really happening?"
My mom made me call to follow up on her RSVP because she was too mad at her own friend to do so.