Help! My guests replies are no!

@Stressed - Now I'm stressed too because you won't answer the questions - are you asking which vendors to cancel? Is that your question? And, most important, does your venue have a minimum guest number??? Do you have to meet a specific number of guests, is that why you're stressed?

Cold, selfish and insensitive? You said your own family isn't on board with this "wedding" of yours. It's called being realistic and honest and getting straight to the point. Many people are not going to take a 5 year vow renewal serious....not when they have to dish out a lot of money to come to it. You may have local friends and family that will come, but you have another 6 weeks to wait it out to see if that happens.

Your family is paying for this? If your question is about what/if to cancel - why don't you ask the people footing the bill? This reminds me of on Friends when Ross is getting married for the second time, is a 30-something man, and the parents are paying for everything... Seems a little weird.

I don't understand why you referred to yourself in third person. "the couple wanted..." "the couple?" as in you? And you're not paying for all of this? Someone else is? What the hell is going on?

Jessica - I didn't say it means nothing. I said that to me, my family, and FH's family it would mean nothing. Maybe OP's family is similarly non-religious and would find the whole thing meaningless. Just throwing out other ideas as to why someone would not prioritize this event.

Stressed, I understand that the truth you're hearing isn't really what you were hoping for, but that doesn't mean that the people who took the time to respond to you were cold, selfish, insensitive and uncaring. Many posters said they were sorry for your situation, and I don't see anything written that qualifies as selfishness (there's nothing in the context of this discussion for anyone to be selfish about). If you had asked the same question on The Knot, you would have been met with some pretty strong language telling you, in no uncertain terms, that you had the wedding of your choice five years ago and it's time to put the dream away and live with the consequences of your decision. You'd hear a lot of references to "a pretty princess day" and you would be mocked as a "speshal snowflake". Believe me, they jump on this type of subject with a vengeance. Nobody here did that to you -- not even close.

I'm wondering if the words you used to described the WW ladies are, in reality, the feelings you might be harboring towards the guests you don't believe will attend your event. You have a right to feel hurt, but your guests have a right to look at the event and weigh the cost of attending (and someone made another good point -- kids are back in school in September. That means finding days of overnight childcare or pulling them out of school and paying for their plane tickets as well). I live in New York and have been to California quite a few times (I have family in San Diego). It's a long flight and it's an expensive flight. Hotels are expensive. Sure, they will enjoy an evening of good food, drinks, and entertainment, but they will have paid serious money to attend the event. Honestly, with so many miles separating the east and west coasts, I don't think it would matter if you called this a vow renewal, an anniversary party, or a religious wedding. In fact, if it were your first wedding, I suspect you'd still have a good number of declines just based on the distance and expense (plenty of brides on WW have shared their disappointment about declines coming from family members who are too far away to attend their weddings).

This is a nice group of ladies. Some are more direct than others, but unless you're getting a response from a troll, you'll get the truth. I believe that the truth is you're going to have to scale back your expectations and realize that this may be a far smaller affair than you imagined (tht doesn't mean it will be 8 people, but it probably won't be 100). Everyone here will help you figure out how to make this work when you have a better idea of what you're actually looking at in terms of numbers.

Wait a minute...I just read your last comment (I missed it before). Who is "the couple"? Are you actually the bride, or are you a wedding planner who sold this couple on an event that was rather ill-conceived from the beginning (and what's with the "some guests even wanted free room and board" comment? Why is that so awful? I would think that after spending that much money to get to your vow renewal, you would want to help by allowing as many guests as possible to stay with local family members).

Overdramatic much?

OP, your expectations are unrealistic.

Is it Wednesday?

I wouldn't worry about it. People tend to send in their RSVP at the last minute. You still have time to your deadline.

@Centerpiece, I think she was just referring to herself in the third person. It looks like English might not be her first language so maybe it's just a normal expression for her.

@Stressed: I really really want to know if your venue has a minimum guest requirement and that's why you're stressed about cancelling vendors.

Rachel, my apologies! I think I misread it!

RE: No, I am the bride. Been doing everything alone. Not 1 family member helped. The groom is stressed and worried. What if we only get 10 people to come? Won't it be boring? And the venue has no minimum requirement of people. We always expected at least 50 to show up. It's still 6 weeks before RSVP'S and 2 months until wedding in mid September. We're just worried and stressed.

I'm so damn confused.

If a family member is paying, then that would be help, right? Isn't a "couple" paying?

You wrote:

The family in NYC has money & never helped. East coast was notified in March and May. West coast got notified in June. Everyone at first got excited, and all said yeah! We'll come. Now, we don't know yet all the replies. The small family on the west coast has been paying for everything!

Who is "the small family"? That implies that someone else is paying for this and your reference to the NYC money having family and not helping implies that you expected otherwise. I don't understand what is going on. This is very unclear.

Honestly? I can think of about two people I'd fly across the country for, wedding, vow renewal or funeral. The expense, the time? And if that seems cold and selfish, well, sorry.

I was wondering how long it would take for the "you all are so mean' card to fly from the deck.

From StressedBride: "The couple just wanted to do something nice, religious, meaningful, and memorable"

Who's posting???

RE: The groom is only 1 person paying for everything. He wanted to! Nobody else. Everyone else on the east coast has just been dramatic and critical. I paid for all my personal stuff for this day. We're not materialistic, or rich. We planned everything since early January. 80% of the guests knew it was going to happen. So, it's not confusing or unrealistic.

I still don't understand what's going on. I don't even know why you brought up who is paying to begin with.

People will say all the time "yeah, yeah, I'll definitely be there" and then the minute they actually price out flights and travel arrangements, they do the math, and say "nope, sorry". I don't understand the outrage here.