RSVPs in.. sooo many declines.

LindseyK17 - they may let you put upgrades you had already planned on towards meeting the minimum. That's what ours did with the extra wine thing. We had already made that upgrade and they informed us it would go towards meeting our minimum.

We also had a 50% decline rate but we were expecting that. My mom wanted me to invite every person that I was related to and so I did. We could have easily hosted the entire guest list but I knew that none of my family (everyone except my mom lives out of state) would come. Hopefully the venue will let you upgrade something.

I would think of coworkers or close friends of your parents that you didn't invite. I don't think people will be offended just tell them that you were unable to invite them do to being over your limit and now you would love it if they could come

I feel bad for people who have huge declines and have this obligation to invite people.

This is why actual relation does not matter it's who you WANT there and who you KNOW are closest to you.

Inviting some family out of obligation just leads to issues sometimes. Skip unimportant family and invite those who you truly want to be there.

Not that this helps now, but I'm in a similar situation. I'm planning on sending out invites early and as declines come in, send out invites, still before the RSVP. I'm only sending out 15 over my minimum and I know of 8 no from STD.

I'm actually hoping for a 25% decline rate just so I can upgrade the buffet package to include 4 full hours of open bar instead of 2 and more appetizers/entrees options. I don't see anything wrong with sending second waves of invites. Those that may feel offended will just not come. Or you can always upgrade your package to meet the minimum.

just invite more people.

FH and I were once invited to a wedding over text ONE WEEK before the wedding. We went and had fun! Looks like a lot of people declined because there were empty tables there all decorated and even had bread on them, but no butts in the seats

I hope many people decline to our DW! Lol

My venue has a minimum, but have been really great at helping us with upgrades to meet the minimum rather than paying for nothing. Still, it hurts a little knowing what the price per person is right now...ever seen Father of the Bride? I promise not to lose it over hotdog buns.

Our venue doesn't have a minimum, but when we signed our contract, we had to guarantee a number of people (that WE determined). We plan on inviting about 75 - literally EVERYONE is from OOT, so we reserved for 40. We can add to that number up until 2 weeks prior to the day.

Have you thought about sending a second group of invites out?

@Natalie none of the venues I looked at had minimum on a Saturday in season or out of season.

This is my biggest fear in wedding planning!

Hopefully they let you upgrade some food to account for the extra, Late night food is a great idea!

@Natalie we didn't either. Maybe it depends on the area. We planned to invite around 150 and a a few places I reached out to had that as a minimum on a Saturday. The venue we picked has a minimum of 100 people which I think we'll make. Our RSVPs have been unpredictable so far (we've had both surprise yeses and declines...you just never know.)

Yeah two weeks is pretty late to ask new people to come- I am guilty of 'B-Listing" but it was people my family members decided they wanted there so THEY invited them lol

Yikes, I'm sorry OP. That's annoying that there is a minimum and especially one that isn't even that low. Thankfully, our venue has a minimum of 2 hahaha so if all else fails.. but I'm definitely scared of a bunch of RSVP'd no's. We're already starting out low at 95 invited AND it's out of town.

Not going to call anyone to give a last minute invite, I seriously debated even though I knew it was a a huge faux pas. But I don't want to make people feel like that, so I told FH he couldn't either.

The good news is, my contact at the venue reached back out and said that everything we added on throughout the process would count towards our minimum, which is a huge relief. And the "people" minimum is really just the costs associated with the people. So we're only out $500, so they're just removing some of the discounts that they offered up front in order to make it a wash. We're still paying less than we were planning on after adding in all of the extras and counting the extra people, so I'm counting it as an overall win.

Just adding this to the list of mini-crisis situations we've gotten in the past month. But now I'm exactly 2 weeks out and SO ready for the culmination of all of the stress and planning and saying no to carbs to be over.

Im glad it worked out for you! We did the opposite. We reserved the venue for the minimum we thought might come 125 and told the venue we would likely add more if needed. We have until 7 days before the Wedding to add however many more we need. We invited 244 so if need be we'll add them on later.