Declines getting us down

Hi everyone. My FH and I are perplexed and frustrated about declines we’re getting. Hoping for some help getting past it 😬


We got engaged in Dec 2019, so we’ve dealt with postponements and then cancelling our original 125 guest wedding, to then pushing out a ceremony at SF City Hall for the last few years due to COVID. At the start of 2022 we picked back up again and decided to do the City Hall ceremony with family and then an intimate reception, with a total guest list of 25 people.
Our feelings on the planning have been great — because we can spend more on fewer people, we’ve done some things to make it feel special with some higher end choices (like booking a private room at a great SF restaurant for the day), but we just had 2 friend couples decline in a row when we expected most of our friends (if not all) to say yes.
We limited the friends list to those who are local, who have been part of our regular groupings of friend hangouts in the last few years. I guess we’re surprised, but maybe we shouldn’t be?

What are peoples experiences with smaller receptions? Should we have tempered our expectations, even though we kept the list small to close friends and family? Was keeping our original date that is also a Monday a mistake? It’s hard not to start spiraling, so we’d love some other folks perspectives! 🙏