For the ladies that gave less than their final count...

kurlss82 Posted: Nov 03, 2011 02:06 PM

For the ladies that gave less than their final count...

How does it work if you give your half a final count of 125 but 130 actually show up? Do you pay on the spot?
I want to give 5 less than my actual final count. Judging by my bridal shower ( I had 7 no shows after they rsvp'd yes) I'm scared to count some people in and then be stuck paying for empty seats.

SoonToBeMrsCali Posted: Nov 03, 2011 04:03 PM

Re: For the ladies that gave less than their final count...

I didn't realize until later that everything was good but I thought we got one free person, because I didn't know how they counted, etc. I gave 3 less than my final count. We had 3 no-shows and 1 cancellation the night before. So essentially 1 person got paid for that didn't show.

I think if more than your final count show up, you settle up at the end and pay the amount.

madamsireeda213 Posted: Nov 03, 2011 09:45 PM

Re: For the ladies that gave less than their final count...

i gave my final count a week before however we had like 6 final cancellations the day before and the day off (still have not spoken to those people! I was so mad!) but we had paid maybe 99% of what was due and I was actually on my way to pay the remainder when those people cancelled. Luckily i hit my minimum and whatever money I had leftover (i ended up overpaying) was used to tip the maitre'd and attendants.

Royalgem21 Posted: Nov 03, 2011 09:53 PM

Re: For the ladies that gave less than their final count...

How do you give less people with seating charts? Doesn't the venue have to know how many seats and tables?

SoonToBeMrsCali Posted: Nov 03, 2011 10:22 PM

Re: For the ladies that gave less than their final count...

Posted by Royalgem21

How do you give less people with seating charts? Doesn't the venue have to know how many seats and tables?

I didn't give my seating chart to them. I had an escort card board that was set up on the day of, with the help of my DOC. I just gave my
seating chart to my DOC - with the full count so she knew where people were sitting in case people lost their cards.

We paid for less than the full count when we made final payments and it worked out.

Royalgem21 Posted: Nov 03, 2011 10:36 PM

Re: For the ladies that gave less than their final count...

What I'm saying is, you have to give your venue some sort of seating arrangement so they know how many chairs are at each table, right? If they only set 150 chairs and you have 153 show up, where would the others sit?

NYtherapist Posted: Nov 03, 2011 10:44 PM

Re: For the ladies that gave less than their final count...

We shorted our final count and it worked out perfectly. We had a couple who no-showed and 2 couples cancelled the day of.

The hall told us that if additional guests showed up, they'd just add the chairs wherever we told them to.

bartgirl12 Posted: Nov 03, 2011 11:06 PM

Re: For the ladies that gave less than their final count...

We gave our venue a list of people with 6 less than our list but we gave them all our escort cards because we knew they wouldn't sit there and read and count each one. On the day of our wedding, we had 3 no-shows, so we had our venue set up the 3 place settings for the people that did show where we told them to.

kurlss82 Posted: Nov 04, 2011 10:37 AM

Re: For the ladies that gave less than their final count...

Thank you so much ladies!
I think I will give 5 less than my final count. I'd rather deal with a bit of confusion (if it even creates confusion) with the seating than having to pay for people who might not even show and be out hundreds of dollars. I can't afford that right now.

spdy540 Posted: Nov 04, 2011 11:41 AM

Re: For the ladies that gave less than their final count...

I gave less because I knew some people would show up when my sister showed up and didnt have a place card I told my DOC and she just told my sister that it must have gotten lost and my maitre d seated as me where I would like them to sit and sat them there. I wound up with seat filler which brought it to 103 told them 99 my min was 100 paid for a 100 and wound up with 103 and the 3 ate for free.

SoonToBeMrsCali Posted: Nov 04, 2011 11:51 AM

Re: For the ladies that gave less than their final count...

Posted by Royalgem21

What I'm saying is, you have to give your venue some sort of seating arrangement so they know how many chairs are at each table, right? If they only set 150 chairs and you have 153 show up, where would the others sit?

Only my DOC got the chart with the amount of seats at each table. Based on that we had 3 more than what we paid for. But those people ended up not showing so I think the hall checks the amount of plates that are served.

I see other brides have just had the maitre'd set up 3 additional chairs at tables that had room for the extra seating.

Moonmist09 Posted: Nov 04, 2011 12:08 PM

Re: For the ladies that gave less than their final count...

Posted by Royalgem21

What I'm saying is, you have to give your venue some sort of seating arrangement so they know how many chairs are at each table, right? If they only set 150 chairs and you have 153 show up, where would the others sit?

your RH gives you a chart, all you have to put on the chart is the number of people who will be sitting at that table. so if 10 people are sitting in a table, you just put down 10, not the names of the 10 people.

Each RH works differently, some of them want all the names of your guests and which table they will be sitting in because they will make a huge seating chart for you and display it so that everyone will know where they will sit (if your RH does this, you do not need placecards)
Otherwise, you will just put in the number of people sitting in the tables like i explained above and you will have to take care of putting everyone's names of a placecard and assigning a table number to them. If this is the case, your RH won't care where they sit, just how many people per table.

So even if you want to lie, you can. Lets say you have 150 people who RSVP'd yes but you think only 145 will show, just add another couple of people to some tables and those seats will stay empty on the day of. the RH will remove any extra place settings and chairs the day of.