Putting out feelers for destination wedding attendance.

It’s not necessarily tacky, but it’s not going to work. People don’t know their plans months in advance and won’t be able to give you a definite answer. Figuring out your guest list for a destination wedding is the same as a local wedding. Send save the dates to everyone you want to attend. Assume that everyone will say yes and don’t invite more than your budget can accommodate. Send out invitations 8-12 weeks before the wedding and have people RSVP. You shouldn’t need a final headcount until one week to one month out.

How much of a destination wedding are we talking? If you haven’t sent save the dates by now and are expecting to have a DW in October, I would get them out ASAP. 7 months isn’t a ton of notice, especially if it’ll be out of the country.

So my FH and I decided on a DW and put feelers out to our families. We invited amour 60 people (intermediate family, then aunts, uncles, first cousins and basically our god-parents, along with our best friends and their partners). We booked a resort wedding package with the possibility to have everyone there. We knew what the additional cost per person was if everyone showed up and were prepared to pay that. Even with sending a STD a year in advance we have been surprised by who is attending and who isn't. You will know who will absolutely be there (parents and siblings usually if they can afford it which you would potentially be able to know right away). So book with the possibility of having everyone showing but also be prepared to get those no's from people.

We also didn't send anything out until we had a date and venue selected. So a longer engagement helped us there.

The STD is not a way to find out who is attending. It is more of an announcement to let people know that you are getting married and a courtesy to guests who may have to make travel arrangements. DO NOT GROUP TEXT ATTENDANCE INQUIRIES! You book your venue based on everyone you are inviting. You give the caterer, venue, etc your final guest count after you send invitations and get your RSVP's back (usually a couple of weeks before the wedding). Till then, you plan as if everyone invited will attend.

Agree with PP. I had a DW. You book the venue for the amount you invite. Hard stop.

I would start with a guest list of every one you want to invite and then reach out to your VIPs to get their thoughts on a destination wedding. Are you trying to book a venue or are the trying to decided on a DW? As others have said, if you have decided on a DW you make your guest list and book based on the invite list

Thanks guys! That does clear things up for me a lot.

We reached out via text to give everyone a heads up. Then we sent emails with the resort/travel agent information. At the 2 year mark I gave STD's. I gave the venue the amount of people we were inviting but obviously no guarantees. We also gave the information out 2 1/2 years in advance. I didn't want to be the go to person that's why we hired a travel agent to keep everything organized. I plan to give invitations out about 6 months out from our wedding date to those actually attending the wedding.

So we went in with an estimate- this number came from how many AT MOST we would want to invite. So we got a space that would fill our 200-250 estimate. Closer to the wedding you will update your vender with an actual count after you get back RSVP's leave about a 5 week window from when you need RSVPs by and the date of your wedding. For example: RSVP by Aug 31st, Wedding October 5th. That way venders have time to plan according to the actual head count. I bought cake for 120 people- in the last 5 weeks, this gives me time to add to my cake order if needed... thanks like that.

Did you guys just ask for addresses through email?

We had a similar problem. We first sat down and made a list of all the people we wanted/needed to invite. Then we started to think about how many people we wanted overall at the wedding and compared it to the guest list we had just created our goal was around 80 people and we knew about 20% wouldn’t make it so we invited 100 in total. Our venue could accommodate anywhere from 2 people to 200 but we still wanted an average headcount to see who might be able to make it and who already knows they can’t make it so for our save the dates we send them electronically and that send them to a little survey asking how likely they are to be able to attend the wedding and I was also able to know if how many people would be there and get their addresses since I didn’t have anyone info.

What website did you use to send them electronically?

Save the Dates are a way for guests to literally save the date...it allows them to plan ahead.

I think it's hard to gauge who can attend before you actually announce it or send the invitations. All you can do is provide your venue with a guess count and provide updates as you go along.

I think when we booked ours previously we had said 60-80 people, the venue was okay with that. The venue than gave us specific dates when they need updates on counts so they could properly plan closer to date.

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So Zola offers the service where you can email everyone a link and they fill out their information themselves, which is good, not great. For older guests you're gonna have to call and get those separately probably, but for the most part now a days email works pretty well.

We had a DW wedding and gave our number based on an estimate, we had a IDEA of who would 100% come (including those that we absolutly MUST invite), those we were unsure about and those we KNEW would not be able to come. There are also articles that give you a percentage of how many people usually attend a DW. For us we had about 130 total invited and 80 attended. During planning we told the venue that at max we would have 100 knowing that our list of "definitely not comings" was about 30 people.

I felt the same way you are feeling at the beginning, but just make sure no matter what your venue can hold your ENTIRE guest list given the off chance that EVERYONE will be able to come (but even with 2 years advance notice you will never get 100% attendance).

Something else I did was send an email to all of my closest friends with all the details as soon as I found the venue. This helped me get an idea of who would be able to make it, and I communicated with them every other month with any updates.

I know its so annoying to hear but it will all work out!