Newlyweds please help: what % RSVP`ed no?

Newlyweds please help: what % RSVP`ed no?

My hall (The Swan Club) holds 220. I don`t want to go that high b/c I want people to have room and not be crammed in. I guarenteed 170.
We are trying to cut our list but I really don`t want to. My fiance and his family have 95 (after cut backs) I have about 60 (work and friends counting their dates-most have serious relationships) and I`m waiting for my parent`s list but I know it`s more than 60.
I don`t want my mom to have to cut her friends- I know them well too. This is just so hard. Should I do a B list after 200 people? I feel guilty. Please tell me your opinions and how many no responses you recieved.
I was wondering how many people on average reply no. I know most brides think everyone will come- but I want to be realistic in this situation. SO please help me. THanks

How many Out-of-town guests do you have?

That will dramatically effect your numbers. If everyone is local, it's possible you can end up with a larger party, but believe me, not everyone will be able to make it. People have other obligations that sometimes can't be changed. Did you send save-the-dates? If so, that could increase your numbers.

We invited just over 200 people to our wedding, but our party was only about 125. However, we had a very large percentage of out-of-town guests who weren't able to travel.
Hope this helps, even if just a little.
Good luck!

There is no sure answer .. which makes it SO tough!

We had invited more than 200 people to our Sunday evening wedding, very few from out of town, and in the beginning we had hardly any nos. But, the closer the RSVP deadline came, the more nos we ended up getting. Then, to top it off, just when I thought we had things all figured out, including the seating chart just one week prior to the wedding, we had a handful of people come off the list for one reason or another. Others were from people who said they were bringing someone, who all of a sudden now were coming solo, or people who had said yes, then backed out for unspecified reasons. It was really aggrivating, and I had to go back and rework the seating plan, and push back our final meeting with John Anthony`s. In the end, we had a few people flat out not show up, which will happen, and also had someone show up without a guest she was 'supposed to be' bringing. But anyway, my point is, you just never know what people are going to do. After feeling pretty confident three weeks out that we would hit 145, we ended up around 130, most of which came off either one week prior, or just didn`t show.

When you say you guaranteed them 170, is that the minimum they require from you, or is that the ballpark figure you gave them? We had originally told John Anthony`s we expected 150, but then warned them we might hit 170 after our guest list ballooned while doing the invitations. It didn`t really seem to matter to them until we got close to the wedding, and started having the final planning meetings with them that the requested a more accurate number. Through the final weeks, we kept them posted with the changes. And when we had to reschedule our final meeting to Wednesday instead of Monday, I must have called them four or five times to have them rework the final $ amount we owed as people changed their intentions.

On the flip side, when my brother and sister-in-law were married, they had very few people decline .. I think somewhere around 7!! Guess people just like them better than us! :) Actually, they kept their wedding a lot smaller than we did, and theirs was on a Saturday afternoon (also late September), while ours was a Sunday night.

About 20-30%

But again like the other ladies said it depends on how many from out of town. We had 200+ on the list and the place only held 200 and that was squished. I was freaking out. I think we had 265 on the list. We wound up with about 150 yes replies (we actually had about 125 guests because of 9/11) but we still had over 100 people invited that couldn't make it.

You can always have a B list -- and everytime you get a no reply in the mail you can mail out an invitation from your B list. We mailed out invitations up to three weeks before the wedding in some cases.

About 20-30%

We invited about 250 and we were getting all yes's till the very end when we started getting a lot of no and no from people we expected to say yes. try to give your hall the lowest average min. That helped us alot..

I agree

with the 20-30%-- we invited 265 and ended up with somewhere around 210-215(no clue what the final # was--but only paid for 200)the higher the number of guests usually the more No's--but of course you never know--
Good luck
Laura

5% *NM*

Newlyweds please help: what % RSVP`ed no?

We invited 145 and had 107
guests. However, I does depend
on how many out-of-towners.
Also, beware of those who
respond 'yes' then call 2 days
before the wedding to tell
you they're not coming.

Thanks I feel a little better

Our min. guarentee was 160 or 170 (not sure which) but we're not really worried about meeting it b/c we both have huge families. It's a Saturday night my fi family is all local and my side has a fair amount of out of towners. The room holds 220, and while I don't want to hope people say no, I really, really don't want people to be squished and I think they will be if it gets up that high. After reading your responses, I decided I will send out between 220-235 invites. Well, as after I just typed that I thought maybe those numbers are too high. UGGGHHH I'm still not positive how many I should send out the first time. HELP! This is so confusing. But I want to say it made me feel better reading your responses so thank you.

Do you mean 235 invites or total people?

If you are mailing 235 invites, and each invite is for 2 people, then I would say you are WAY over the numbers you should be considering.

In my previous post, I said that we invited slightly over 200, which was total people, not number of invites.

If you are unsure, than talk to your parents and in-laws and see if you can come up with a 'guesstimate' of who will definitely show up, and who probably won't.
Good luck, and don't worry - it all works out in the end. :)

Sorry- I meant people *NM*