Guest list number

I personally would not invite more than your venue can hold.

I would not invite any more than your venue can hold.

I would cut it to 240 for initial invites and have a secondary list of people to invite if other people cannot make it

One of the most surprisingly things I've seen over and over again on this forum is how often brides report they had 95% of better acceptance rates. Some of the worst posts I've read were from brides trying to figure out how they were going to "uninvite" guests because their responses exceeded their venue's capacity. Based on those posts, I wouldn't invite one person more than your capacity (and be sure to include yourselves and your vendors in your count).

Cut it. It’s just cause you don’t want the off chance of more people saying yes than you thought.

You shouldn’t invite more than you can accommodate.

Our capacity is 240. We invited 285. No issues. We did count all children and anyone over 17 trying to bring a plus one tho.
90% of our invitations were accepted...
But only 75% of bodies we anticipated accepted. (So many children are being baby sat that night.)
It was super nerve wracking as RSVPs came in. Even the we had a plan.
Looking back tho, I'm glad we went ahead and invited those who we would have had to cut. We had 4 couples who declined, and they and their kids added up to 32 people. I wouldn't have been happy if I chose to not invite 32 friends over 32 cousins, and then not have the cousins show.

I might cut back a few 20 or so but otherwise I think people will say no.

Congratulations on your big day.... That's a very tough question; we are only having 50 guest and we are pulling out our hair. You may be surprised of the actual outcome especially if you've asked them to RSVP. I personally would narrow it down to avoid last minute issues.

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Great point; I made that mistake of not including vendors who are actually family and threw off our count and now my cousin is upset because she cant include her plus one at the last minute.

Definitely do not invite more than your venue can hold. Prioritize 240 of those on your list and keep the remainder as "fill-ins" - only invite them after those on your priority list have RSVP'd no.

If you have a few people you don't think will come and will be quick to RSVP, you can even send out their invites a little early so you have a confirmed "no" early enough to send other invites not too close to your wedding. You could even send invites out in "waves" at 10 weeks out, 9 weeks out, and then 8 weeks out, so that hopefully you get some feedback from the earlier invites by the time you send out later ones. Then it won't be super obvious who your "B" list guests were.

Cut your guest list!!! You should never invite more than you can hold. We had very view guest RSVP no. The 20-25% rule is not accurate.