Just venting a bit

elff20 · June 2010

So my list right now is 260 and we still have to add about 20 more people. My fiance and I were planning on about 200 guests. I'm nervous that it will far exceed the 200 mark and then were screwed. My mom is adding more people and its like geez enough already. I'm just a little nervous right now about the number and maybe I just need to calm down and stop thinking the worst. maybe a lot of people will resond no. It is on a friday so maybe people have to work. I don't know.

Has anything like this happened to you?

ms nobody · June 2010

Tell her No.

DH and i drew the line, and it's an important line to draw with parents who feel entitled, or that your wedding is an event for them to show off and be AWs. If they're unrelated strangers, they really don't need to be at your wedding and that's where i'd start cutting. In fact, we did cut a list of Great Aunts and Uncles DH had never met, even though they lived 10 minutes away his entire life. They didn't make family a priority for 20+ years, and our wedding was not the time to start, IMO.

cmkuno · June 2010

We really wanted a small wedding so we had to make a lot of tough decisions about who to invite. It's hard, because you want everyone there who has loved you and supported you, but sometimes it's just not practical. If 200 is the number you want, you may just have to cut some people. Is your mother helping you pay for the wedding? If so, you have have to let her invite some of these people she wants to add, but unless she's paying for everything, I think it's okay to give her a number of guests she's allowed to invite and say that's it. If 200 is all you can afford, I wouldn't go much over that. Yes, it's always possible you'll get a lot of declines, but it's also possible you won't! So don't count on it. You could always try the A list, B list thing. Send your invites out a little on the early side, and if you get more no's than expected, add some people later.

Kelki · June 2010

I'm with Ms. Nobody. Maybe your mom keeps adding people because she thinks you don't mind, or have the extra room? Just tell her enough is enough...the hall has a limit and the extras she's inviting might have to be seated in the bathroom if they show up

Knottie1435582995 · June 2010

I had that problem. We wanted 200 people, and our guest list swelled to over 320. However, I didn't have the ability to say "no" because my parents paid for the wedding...so if they wanted to invite more people it really wasn't my place to say no. We ended up having about 220 actually come to the wedding. A lot of people chose not to bring their children (which cut about 50 bodies right there), and then we had about 50 friends and family that RSVPed no.

Gnatthebride · June 2010

My mom who originally had NO interest in the wedding also decided to add people. She started asking me about inviting people I went to school with and hadn't spoken to in 15 years!
We went with the suggestion from cmkuno and gave her a number of allowed people and told here she could pick from her list. It helped when we told her a percent, example: "Your guests alone represent 25% of the invite list". Really close relatives we considered a given so they weren't on her list.
She did end up picking some of her friends over relatives she hadn't seen or talked to in years so I think it worked better letting her pick. I told her my rule of thumb was whether I felt comfortable calling someone on the phone for a random conversation. If it felt weird I wasn't planning on inviting them.

Good luck...... I think this is actually the hardest part of the wedding.

sunkissed212 · June 2010

whatever you do...DO NOT rely on declines to allow your guest list to get out of control. The "average" decline rate is 19% but that obviously is a case by case basis. A friend of mine invited about 30 more people than she expected would come, hoping that she would get a certain number of declines. when she didn't, she had to squeeze 3 extra tables into an already crowded room in order to accommodate all of the extra people she invited (thinking they wouldn't come). Obviously, you can give yourself a little bit of cushion, but don't let it get out of hand or you could end up in a mess.

elff20 · June 2010

My mom actually said to me if everyone replied how much more money did I need. She has already given $4,000 but honestly I have no idea where this money is coming from. My parents have no money. It's tough because I want these people there but it's just a lot of people.

cwimer6154 · June 2010

I am going through a similar dilema right now. We were shooting for 150-165 at the most. Our guest list grew to a whopping 192 and so far out of 90 RSVP's we've only had 3 no's. DO NOT rely on a set decline rate!! So now I am budgeting for around 188 and that's costing us quite a bit more than originally budgeted. And to top it off we're already pushing our space capacity as is.

Now, FMIL is asking me if I invited "so & so" and I did not. She gave us about 25% of our budget and is the only family member helping us out, we are paying for the bulk of it out of our pocket. But FI's portion of the guest list is only 40% and mine is 60% so I feel bad telling her no. This is definitely been the hardest part with the planning process.

Gwenwhyfare · June 2010

I agree with everyone else. Your guestlist needs to be what you can pay for. I had to have this talk at the very beginning with my family. We cut the list at second and third cousin's whom I'm not even close to or even know. Good luck, it's definitely one of the not so fun parts of planning a wedding.

ladysunkissed · June 2010

OMG...I was just coming on here to vent! My FI is driving me nuts! HE keeps adding people!!!! Our room fits 120 people MAX (and I honestly believe that's pushing it). This morning, he calls to tell me that his dad wants to invite his (my FI's) H.S. football coach and his wife because they (FILs) just got invited to his daughter's wedding. I told him no...we are already over 130 and like PP said, you can't count on a decline rate. People whom I didn't expect to come from out-of-town have already told me they've booked their hotel rooms and the invites haven't even been sent yet!

My parents are paying for the reception, yet 60% of the guests are his. I wanted a SMALL wedding (i.e. under 50 people), but he just keeps adding and adding. Then he decides that he can just take so-and-so off of his list. Ummm...he sent them a save-the-date, so he can't do that. To make matters worse, I asked his family FOUR TIMES to review their guest list to make sure no one was missing before we sent out STDs. Since then, they've added eight people to an already tight list. Soooooo frustrating!!!!!

Just venting a bit

Re: Just venting a bit

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