Destination wedding: How many people to invite?

We’re not having a DW but we’ve had two friends that did. The first couple had a 5% decline rate. The second had a 70% decline rate. This really just depends on your guests and how willing they are to spend the money to travel. I will say if your venue only allows for accommodations for 48, I wouldn’t invite over that. How would you decide who has to stay somewhere else?

If you can only accommodate 50, you need to only invite 50. There are horror stories about couples inviting, say, 75 and something like 60 said they would come and the couple is panicking last minute wondering how to tell 10 people they can't come. Don't put yourself in that situation.

I had a destination wedding and invited 130 people. Over 100 came despite a raging snowstorm.

View Quoted Comment Exactly this! You definitely don't want to end up in a horribly sticky situation and end up super stressed!

In this type of scenario, we definitely wouldn’t un-invite people, we would comp them hotel rooms or find another way to make it work. We wouldn’t invite anyone we didn’t have the ability to pay for...we’re just trying to avoid a scenario whereby we need to spend additional money for rooms if we don’t have to. Since we know at least 5 people on our list won’t come (elderly/extended relatives), we may invite a few more than 48 (52 or so) but not enough that would force us into panic mode in the event people DO say yes. Thanks for the feedback!

We had one but in our same state. We invited 15 guests, all showed. Because a DW would have been too expensive for most guests we had a local reception for 50 guests three months later. Still happy with what we did!

Research travel fees for your guests first. If it’s $1K+ per person for hotel, flight & transportation (plus meals), that’s a lot to ask. And definitely don’t pass on costs to guests. Some resorts give you a free wedding if XX guests pay $300-$500/night to stay at the resort. If that’s the case, I’d offer to pay 50% of the guest hotel fees (or first night or something).

We had 54/120 invited guests attend the wedding. So about 45% attending.

Well we invited 30.. well then they invited people (without asking.. so we had to tell them no you have to un-invite them... cause we couldn’t have over 30 ppl.) then all those ppl said yes we will be there then after some said 100% yes (we have to give our venue a number) they turned around and said no never mind we aren’t coming. So now it’s looking like about 18 guests... which I’m fine with anyways.

We are having one and we invited about 75 people. We haven’t gotten our invitations out yet but most of my fiancé’s family that got invited already told us that they will be there. So I’m assuming almost everyone will be there.

I think this is a very big know your crowd thing. I invited about 80 people expecting about 40 for a somewhat local wedding. And I literally got 40 on the dot! So it worked perfectly, but I knew all 80 would not show. However, I was prepared to pay more should we have gone over the 40 expected!

FH and I live in Las Vegas and we're having a DW in Fresno, CA. We're inviting a little over 100 people. More than likely not all will show up but I'm looking into reserving a hotel block for about 70 guests or so. I'm also notifying my guests about other stays such as airbnb and/or vrbo.

My wedding isn't until 2020 so I haven't even sent out save the dates yet let alone know how many people will actually RSVP. Just make sure wherever you look into places for people to stay that it will accommodate all those you invite in the case you do end up having 100% attendance.

We’re having a destination wedding in a few months. I wrote out a list that came to 82. I knew off the bat 16 would not be able to come. I invited them as a courtesy cause they were like family friends. We’re looking at about 50-55 coming. I’ve gotten about half the rsvps back. But so far everyone I thought wouldn’t be able to come have said no and all who I thought would come have said yes.

I would say you only invite what you can accommodate unless you know for a fact someone won’t come. We had a DW and very person except 1 came. Luckily we stuck to our limit to avoid a potential problem. Good luck.

View Quoted Comment Where did you get married?