Guest list vs. actual number attending

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Can we just take a quick second and say that the Post Office's success rate is alarmingly small? I had the same thing happen to me, as well as several of my recently married friends. It's hard to believe that they can get away with losing half of our mail, and it stinks because I didn't order enough extra invitations to make up for the ones they lost!

Absolutely cut the list. NEVER go over what you can realistically have!

We sent our invites early and as ppl declined we added from our "B" list...this was one of the more difficult aspects of wedding planning

Also, I've noticed that the less people you invite, the more accepted RSVPs you'll receive. This is kind of a common sense thing because you're inviting people that feel a lot closer to you, but I hadn't thought about it before.

And keep in mind too that most of your declined RSVPs won't come in until the last minute! Our RSVP date is in a couple weeks, and we still have yet to receive a single NO out of the guests who have RSVP'd (about half so far.. 140 invited total).

We had to pay for 100 guests minimum, regardless.

We knew we'd never hit that.

Our hopeful guest count was 80, but after my FH had a falling out with two friends, and family drama (caused my FH's cousin/aunt to stir the family pot, so to speak), our final guest count is 38.

We invited 156 and 125 are coming I am going to guess that we will have 120 due to last minute cancellations or no shows.

We are having a destination wedding, over a holiday, no less. I have read that DWs have a decline rate of 30-50%, so we are inviting 160. That should put us between 80-110 which would be perfect. Fingers crossed!!

If you're on a strict budget for 125 people then I would cut it. You can't necessarily underestimate how much people love you and would want to attend.

We invited basically exactly who we knew would come with only a few courtesy invited to people we absolutely knew wouldn't fly over for the day and we planned it exactly right. Every single person (Except those few courtesy invites) replied yes! So we had 100 people like we planned all song.

If we had invited more randos then we would have been kinda screwed if they showed up.

If you have the wiggle room though, then of course not all of those extra guests will come, but you have to be prepared to pay for the ones who surprise you and RSVP yes.

Invite the amount that you can realistically afford to attend. If you invite 145 guests and all 145 RSVP yes, are you able to properly host? It seems like there hasn't been 100% guest attendance that I've seen but you can't rely on that not happening because there is the chance that it does. We invited 164 guests and we have a final count of 104.

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We're in the same boat. Our original guest list was at 120, and we loved it. It grew to 163, and we will be sending out 82 invites! We can afford the people, and we have the room, but we just wanted a smaller list from the beginning. Now, we are hoping people will RSVP no, which is terrible but just true.

We wanted 110 to attend. Our venue could fit up to 275 and we'd be able to afford 125 just not as easily as we could afford 110. My husband's family is distant so we knew a lot of them wouldn't bother to come so we were certain we'd get declines so we invited 138. 101 guests ended up attending.

So my advice is don't invite more than your venue can hold, and don't invite too many more than you can afford. You guys know your families best, if you have a close family that would do anything to come to your wedding then you'll probably get a lot of Yes RSVPs but if they're the hit or miss type... sometimes they attend things, sometimes they don't then it's likely you'll have the typical 20% decline

We did this too thinking more people would decline. No such luck lol

If it's just a preference and you'd really be ok, financially and space wise, if EVERYONE turned up, go with the 145. Realize that it could be a few more, if some of your single guests become involved in relationships between now and then. (I did it myself. Received a STD to just me, and my BF now FH moved in with me. The bride graciously added him to the guest list. I didn't even have to ask.)

If you can truly afford 125, or fit that many comfortably in your venue, then don't invite over that number.

We're inviting 150 to our cerimony and having an indoorģoutdoor reception so we can invite twice that. Our venue is on 66 acres and we're having a hog roast catered. But if I were you, I would only invite as many as you can afford.

It's realistic to always expect at least a few declines. But you don't want to invite for more than what you can host. By host I mean either how many guests can easily fit in your ceremony and reception space, and how much you want to spend on food and alcohol.

So for FH and I's wedding we have about 290 invited. So far we out of the people we have heard back from and the few we started reaching out too since our RSVP date was the 1st, we have 137 yes's (30 of which are kids) and about 48 no's and then around 100 we still haven't heard back from. Pretty small decline rate so far but those people are more out of town folks versus nearby ones.

With all of that you still shouldn't over invite, but a way to have maybe more declines would be to not do save the dates or have them very limited. I only sent them to VIP people and family I absolutely wanted there. Mom was adamant on inviting family I haven't see in 3+ years and I didn't want them to come anyways so I just didn't send a save the date so they wouldn't of had near as much notice to schedule around work and other activities so it would have been harder for them to come.

We invited 172, 118 accepted, and 118 showed up. We had a pretty large decline rate, but that isn’t normal. We had a lot of elderly out of town guests and our wedding was the week or two prior to school starting up again and a lot of people had family trips planned. We also had other people that were invited to other weddings on that same day. If you venue and your budget can accommodate 145, go for it. If it can’t, don’t do it.

We invited something like 148, and had a total of 123 (including us) in the end. It’s impossible to guess though. Most of our declines came late or were spouses unable to attend and there was definitely a time where we were sweating that we would have a full house! (We WERE prepared to host everyone, but space wise, I was hoping we could eliminate one table so everyone could have a little more elbow room. Worked out Well for us, but if it had been anything other than “would be nice to have a little more space” it would’ve been a little panic inducing probably)

if you really want less people, it’s better to invite less people. There were definitely some people we figured wouls never come but replied with a resounding yes! You can’t really count on anything in the old invite game

If this is something where you can only accommodate so many (financially or spatially) and you're counting on declines, don't do it. Only invite as many as you can host. You'll only stress yourself out hoping you get those declines, and then what happens if you don't? You'd be surprised by people.

But if this is a preference thing, do whatever you'd like.

But don't B list like a PP suggested. That is beyond rude. You have to make tough choices when it comes to the guest list (I can't tell you how many times I went back and forth with my parent's and FH's parents over this).

We invited 264 guests to our wedding. We have about 238 attending.

I would go with what you can accommodate and a know your crowd feel. If you can accommodate 145, don’t feel forced to cut it. If you can only accommodate 125, definitely cut it.

If you have a large chunk of the guest list having to travel, it’s safe to say that you’ll probably have quite a few decline. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t invite them though! We had around 350 on the guest list (all of FHs family is out of state and most of our friends from college are too) and we’ve got 250 RSVPed so far