rsvp Declines

We have not sent out invitations yet, but you should really only invite the number of people you can afford to pay for. Normally about 10-15% of people decline, but even so that is not guaranteed. One of my friends just got married and she had about 99% of her guests accept. You need to budget for 100% accepting because it could happen especially if neither of you seeing a lot of people declining. We had other people we wanted to invite so we looked at our guest list and decided not to invite children. We had about 30-40 children on our list originally, but by eliminating them we were able to have adults that we really wanted to be there. If your numbers don't include children then I would see if there is wiggle room within other areas of your budget. Hope this helps!

It also depends on the time of year... if it's vacation season or the holidays, more out of towners will probably decline because travel and hotels are more expensive. We got married over the holidays, and so we over-invited because we had many people who had verbally told us they would not be able to attend and we knew some would def not be able to travel long distances.

It's never a good idea to invite more people than your venue can hold or your budget can manage. You never know if you'll have 100% RSVP yes (it's unlikely, but possible). It would put you in a really bad place to have more guests RSVP yes than you can handle - because then you'll have to tell people they actually can't come?

That being said, a good rule of thumb is that you can expect 80-90% of your invitees to attend.

View Quoted Comment Thanks Veronica! We have no children and are already at our 150 mark. About 65 are my family! Ugh. I’m sending save the dates early next month and hoping that some people will tell us that they can’t make it. From there we can fill in with folks from our B list. That’s the plan at least, not sure if it’ll work out that way.

View Quoted Comment We don’t plan to invite more than 150 people, we are just hoping to get some early declines so that we can invite some other friends.

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Ah, I see! You'll find on here that people are pretty adamantly against B-Lists, however I understand that you need to do what you need to do. If you send your invites out early enough you can hopefully avoid some of the awkwardness that comes with B-Lists

View Quoted Comment I’ve found that even with sending out save the dates, you really won’t hear from anyone regarding whether they’re coming or not. We had maybe one family tell us that. My grandma even received a save the date last week for her nephew’s stepdaughters wedding on the SAME DAY as mine, so that’s an entire side of the family who never said a word about not coming.

View Quoted Comment Yeah, I can understand the awkwardness. We plan to be pretty transparent with our friends that unfortunately everyone can’t come but we are having an after party for those who would still like to celebrate with us.

I've been surprised by how many posts I've seen on this forum where couples had almost 100% attendance, so I agree you absolutely must plan for that. Our target was 100 guests. We invited 127 (we had room and budget for them all, but were nearly certain of at least 20 declines [e.g., elderly relatives who wouldn't be able to travel, 5 international guests who we were almost assured couldn't afford to come, plus-ones we couldn't imagine being used, etc.]). We ended up with 101 acceptances -- an 80% acceptance rate; however, two people came who we did not expect and there was a local couple the B&G were sure would come who declined because they were going to be out of town. So, our predictions were pretty close, but not perfect. Your strategy of send STDs to your "must invites" and then see how they respond is a good one. Good luck!

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We had a couple people tell us when we sent out our save the dates that they could not attend and I kind of figured they wouldn't, but we had still budgeted for them. Since I know for sure they won't be able to attend, (one will be at his beach house and can't get away and the other will be out of the country) we removed them from the guest list. There was no point on sending them an invitation when they both had valid reasons they could not attend. I know you normally are supposed to send an invitation to everyone you send a save the date in case plans change, but in this case I know neither guests' plans are going to change. They are vacations the guests take every year.

I wish I could help, but sending Save the Dates won't give you much of an indication of who may decline. No one really responds to a Save the Date. You won't know until you get RSVP cards back, which, at that point, it is tough to then reach out to your "B" list. I feel your pain. Our list is much bigger than we planned, but it's very tough to cut close friends and family. Good luck!

We are inviting about 200 people. We have about 125 adults, 60 children (ages 4 to 20), and about 15 babies. We thought we would be around 160 total, but my fiancé has a large family so it didn't work out that way. Thank goodness the venue has a larger ballroom than the one we were going to be in that only held 160.

We sent out the save the dates this past weekend. We know that some of the older adults will not come from Florida and that some of the adults will not bring their children. We were able to negotiate with the venue about the price for the children.

My fiancé still has family members that he would like to invite, but we will see who is coming once the actual invitations go out.

Are you having people send back RSVP cards or are you having them RSVP on a wedding website?

I thought I remember being told that 20-30% of invited guests would decline. At my first wedding we had 120 guests and invited about 160. I don't think anyone has 100% attendance. I would say you could probably invite another 25 and be safe.

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I would like to do website but some of my guests are a bit old so I'm thinking I'll have them send them back.

We invited 275 guests and sent out our invitations the week of Valentine’s Day (due date is April 5). So far, we have only gotten 6 declines (two families)!

Honestly out of 100% your turned around be like 85%, remember to keep it to those that are closest to your heart. Good luck and lots of blessing. Happy Planning

I wouldn’t count on anyone declining. We’ve received a little less than half of our RSVPs backed, and seriously who accepts and who declines is the most bizarre, unpredictable thing! ie, we invited a group of friends that my mom and I have been part of since I was in first grade. It’s 8 mothers (her age), and their 8 daughters (my age). One of the daughters (who I barely even talked to at the time) dropped out of the group in fifth grade, but her mom kept coming. We invited her, because we had to, since we were inviting her mom and the rest of the group. It was seriously the definition of an obligation invite. But..... SHES COMING. I seriously don’t even think I’ll recognize this girl. No idea why she wants to come lol. But we were counting her in our heads as an implied decline..... good thing we didn’t invite over capacity, because clearly people will surprise you with their RSVPs! Meanwhile, FH’s first cousins (his ONLY COUSINS) and his aunt, are not coming. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

If it helps, we invited 134 people, so far we’ve gotten 11 declines and 48 accepts. Waiting on the rest. Our declines so far, were all from people who live far away and couldn’t afford or didn’t have the time to travel, and my grandpa’s elderly brother.

I would be very careful
B listing people. There are people that find offensive. Just know the person well before you b list.