Pre-rsvp

I don’t think I’d call it tacky, but I don’t think it will yield the results you want. Yes you may have a few people tell you they definitely won’t be there but the majority will say things like “wouldn’t miss it” even though they may end up declining. You also might have some of those people who say they can’t come change their minds and end up making it work.

I mean you can ask to get a general consensus, but I'm not sure how accurate that number will be since people often change their minds and who knows what the world would look like a year from now. It won't hurt anything to ask though!

It's not tacky, but it just isn't going to get you accurate results this far out and is kind of a waste of time. People will change their minds in both directions. No one knows what COVID will look like next year, and do people really make Independence Day plans this far out? (besides weddings, Lol) I TOTALLY understand wanting to know...but you're just going to get false accepts/declines which will only cause you unnecessary frustration later on. I would just send out your Save the Dates in a few months, and you'll probably get some feedback there which might be helpful.

I think you’ll be able to tell a lot by just general conversation. My friend originally planned to get married Memorial Day weekend 2020 (obviously postponed) and she checked with the VIPs before booking that date. I think only one couple had long-standing plans they wouldn’t skip.


My wedding reception is in ten days and I was able to guess within 4 people of who would accept/decline. The one thing that can throw a wrench into numbers is people getting pregnant haha.

If the main reason you want this is for rentals I would just put the deposit down for the max possible (so 200) and when it's about 1-2 weeks before you can give the rental company the final headcount and they'll just take away those extras. It shouldn't be an extra charge for you.

When would you expect this information to be shared? If you send save the dates a year out (which is still a bit long), I highly doubt people will have an answer for you. When do the vendors need this info? If it’s more than 6 months before the wedding, I would simply provide the number of guests invited. I’d find it very weird if someone was asking if I was attending their wedding before an rsvp was due, or even received.

Team “it’s just not helpful” and I think especially so in Covid times. We had friends survey their guests (3 months before their scheduled date) to see what peoples’ comfort levels would be attending/attending if vaccinated etc etc and a month later, delta was rampant and half the guests changed their answers. And, covid is making people’s long standing holiday plans subject to change/reschedule/cancelation.
So, asking now just creates more confusion than it is worth. Most of the info you’d get now is meaningless.

Also headcount vagueness is just part of how the industry works , and vendors should understand that. If a rental company requires a high minimum, I’d find another that doesn’t. My rentals were calculated on an estimate, and final numbers weren’t official until a week or so before the wedding, but they were perfectly able to accommodate the change— I got money back/owed way less money in the end (it was fun!) A bigger problem would be underestimating and running the risk of them just not having the inventory to supply your requests!

I will be the dissenter that is a good idea. You will never know anything until you actually talk to your VIPs. You don’t need to do a formal poll but simply talking to them in a regular conversation will give you an idea of what they are able to make arrangements for. Contrary to popular belief, people actually will move heaven and earth to attend if they want to be there.


If you have 200 people you want to invite, then you look for a venue that has a capacity of 200 (you always include yourself and fiancé in the count for fire code reasons), but you don’t ever commit to a venue that has a set minimum guest count requirement because you will be penalized in some way if you don’t meet the minimum.

It wouldn't be tacky maybe you can send save the dates to give you an idea of who is interested in coming and who is not

View Quoted Comment The only caveat with that is you have to send an invitation following a save the date. The only way to get around that is cancel the wedding entirely, including eloping in private.

I'm getting married that same date and am planning on sending out save the dates next month and hoping that I'll get a feel from reaction to that for who is and isn't planning on coming. But I know that I won't really be able to tell until it gets much closer; due to covid, everything is just up in the air. For the time being, I'm proceeding as though things will be close to fine then and figuring that I'll have a better feel for things when it's time for invitations to go out. But because of the holiday weekend, I do want it on people's radar.

Just to give you an idea, we got married on July 5th of this year, we invited a total of 197 and 141 attended the day of.

Plan as though all of your guests are coming. Providing a response a year in advance doesn’t guarantee what’s going to happen next year. So I wouldn’t bank on a Yes or a No this far out.

This may be hard to do since people usually don’t make a final decision on whether they’ll attend a wedding until a 4-6 weeks out. Even if you get a headcount now so much can happen in a person’s life between now and July 2022 that can change their response like a move, a new baby, health, etc. there’s unfortunately no true way to know. I would suggest you discuss with your rental people what their policies are regarding refunds if you end up not needing the full amount of items. My husband and I had this issue with our venue last September because of the pandemic we didn’t want to be locked into the guaranteed minimum head count which was 60. Which would mean if our state only allowed 25 ppl by the time of our wedding we would still be responsible for paying for a wedding of 60 and that was not okay with us. At the time of booking pre pandemic 60 was not large to us at all and we knew we would reach that number easily but with covid weddings were happening last year with 10-25 people and we had no idea what to expect for ours. So we had to make the decision to downsize our guest list and beg our venue to amend this 60 guests minimum from our contract. We ended up having a 46 person wedding but could add to the number if we wanted and just pay the difference. So definitely try to work with your rental vendors and see if you can have something like this arranged that you pay for a minimum and if you end up needing more you can have it added and just pay the difference closer to your wedding when rsvps start rolling in. Get everything in writing.

View Quoted Comment

That's what I was thinking too! Thank you!

Thank you all for your help! I think I'm going to send the save the dates in October, to give those who will want to come a head up of our wedding day. Then I will reach out informally to our guests.

Thanks again!