guest Count: Invited vs. rsvp / Expected to come

We invited 250...and it was hard to get it down to that much (big families). Realistically, a lot of our out of state guests won't be coming, but we are still hoping to get it down below 200. There are a lot of kids on our list too, so we are secretly hoping people will decide to get babysitters for the night. BUT, if we do get 100% RSVPs, then we will joyfully go from there.

I sent out 85 invites. At most I'd have 190 and at the least I'm thinking more like 125. I'm also secretly hoping parents see this as a date night and leave some of the kids with grandma for the night. I just sent out my invites last week so now I'm (not so) patiently waiting for rsvps. I've already had a few texts of "do I really have to send the rsvp back?".. yes. I put postage. Just mail it back.

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Wow.. 190 down to 125 is a big drop. Are you expecting a lot of out of town guests? I feel like I will have the same issue with getting the RSVPs back. Waste of postage if they don't use it!

We are inviting about 120. I'm hoping it's closer to 100.

We wanted 100 originally, settled on 120, but then ended up inviting 134 because it was going to be impossible to cut more people without offending or hurting someone. Right now we are 1 month before our RSVP deadline, we have 12 declines, 54 accepts, still waiting on 68 more responses. So if EVERYONE else comes (super unlikely!) we'll be at 122 which is doable, but my wallet would prefer a little less.

Though I've heard you tend to get more declines closer to the RSVP deadline, so I'm expecting(/hoping for) at least another 5-10 declines lol.

We wanted a small wedding originally but somehow our guest list grew to about 118. I have no idea who will and won’t show up so I’m hoping about 80?

We invited 176, ended up with 118 guests. We had expected between 135-150, but it was the week before school started and a lot of people were on vacation or at the lake. We also had a couple of people that had other weddings that weekend. We also had some elderly guests from out of state, that we knew wouldn't be coming. We also didn't do Save The Dates, which may have played a part.

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190 is if everyone came (kids, parents, etc). 125 is more the people who would be willing to drive to the venue (about an hour and a half from most of my family) and without some of the kids. The average would be more like 150, but I wanted a max number and a "least" number to start thinking of logistics.

We invited 127 (123 adults and the 4 children in the wedding party). Based on cross-county & international travel, some elderly relatives who were highly unlikely to attend, a couple with a new baby, and "plus 1's" that wouldn't be used, etc., we were nearly certain we would end up with 95-105 guests. (However, we had both space and budget for all 127, if by some miracle they all accepted.) We ended up with 101 (97 adults and the 4 kids) -- EXACTLY what daughter and son-in-law had hoped for. There was a little variation between our "predictions" and those who accepted -- some out-of-town relatives who we NEVER thought would come, did, and two local friend-couples of the B&G declined due to other commitments. We didn't have any no-shows (but, one couple left after salads, before the entree...THOSE were some EXPENSIVE salads, thank you very much!). When everything was done, we had an 80% acceptance rate. Good luck! Managing the guest list & RSVPs was the most stressful part of the whole thing for us.

We invited about 140, and about 100 are coming. But we are also having a holiday weekend wedding, and we sent invites to family from out of state who we knew would not come (but were obligated to send an invite anyway).

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How did 100 feel? Was it a good number of people (not crowded, but also not feeling empty)?

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We invited all the kids from FH's side of the family (huge), because I didn't want anyone to have to decline because they couldn't/wouldn't get a sitter.

Almost all of the kids I included the parents have decided to leave behind for the night it actually worked out quite well. Didn't even need to say anything! Easy peasy.

Also - the not sending RSVPs back is so real and so annoying. I wouldn't have included an RSVP card and pre-stamped envelope if I didn't want you to send it back! DUH! Also prepare for some of your guests to not even get your invite. We had several people we are following up with now for an RSVP never even get their invite. Good old USPS.

We invited about 115. So far only one declined and 55 will be there. I still have about 2 1/2 weeks til the RSVP deadline. We are expecting maybe 90-100. Most of our guests are local so we think most will be able to attend.

We invited 225 guests, I'm guessing that we will have more like 160.

Our guest list is 100 and we're expecting a majority, if not everyone, be in attendance. We haven't sent out invitations yet, but we're getting good vibes from a lot of our guests especially our out-of-towners.

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100 was EXACTLY what we had hoped and planned for. We only invited people who were important to the B&G, but even our "immediate" family is huge. In total, about 50 guests were relatives (closer to 40 on the B's side and 10 on the G's; that was aunts & uncles, cousins on my side of the family [daughter grew up with all of them], and a very small number of extremely close family friends [daughter calls them "auntie" and "uncle"]. The other 50 were the B&G's friends -- including a wedding party of 11 and their SOs. From the beginning, we made it clear the guest list was the B&G's decision. The venue had a significantly larger capacity; technically, I think they could do 200+ on the ceremony patio and 240+ in the reception space (but both would have seemed REALLY crowded to us). But, the way they arranged the furnishings it did not seem "empty" (e.g., we did 60" round tables set for 8 with chargers, so the tables looked full without being crowded; to make the numbers work, we had a few tables of 7 and one of 6, for a total of 13 tables and the Sweetheart table for 101 attendees). We all thought it was the perfect size and mix of guests.

We invited 130, it is kind of a destination wedding, so we are expecting 75-85 people.

The (working) guest list is at 70 people, but the wedding is on a Tuesday and about 20 people are out of state guests we would never expect to come but love enough to extend an invitation anyway. I wouldn't be shocked if we ended up with 40-50 attendees?

We invited 72 and we were hoping for around 50 and we'll be right around that mark!

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Thank you so much for sharing this info with me!

We have about 11 tables right now, but thinking we will need to add one or two more (I forgot some people the first time around with the seating chart oops! And we had a few more RSVPs come in), which would put us right around the 13 you had!

Our venue can also hold in and around 200/250, so it's really comforting to know that as long as they arrange things right, the room won't swallow us up!