Guest List Blues...

My FH and I sat down tonight and finalized our guest list. His mom added many people and now we are way over what we want. I think we almost got his mom to agree to pay for who she insists on having. But we guaranteed 150, and our list has 225. I hear that some percentage of guests wont show up. But I really cant afford to have more than 150. Did anyone else have to cut their guest list down?

Re: Guest List Blues...

We sent out 160 invites. We cut corners so we can have all the people that love us there. It was going to be a big party but now it is truely going to be an event when we rebook. So, I say do what you can to add your extra people.. They should be your family and friends and if they come they are coming to share you day because they love you and if not ask your future mil to help or plan on that extra money to help pay.. (hopefully)

best of luck

Re: Guest List Blues...

We sent out 125 invites and have a final count of 197. Yes, we had to cut our list. FH has a lot of people from work coming and he had to cut back. We came out lower than expected. Wait until you do the seating, what fun...lol.

Re: Guest List Blues...

we had to cut WAY down on our list.....because we made up separate lists, and my FH told me he has 75 people on his. I added my 125, and gave a deposit to my hall which doesn't hold over 200. After giving the deposit, I look at his list, and it is 75 COUPLES. We would shell out the extra cash, but there is physically no room. We had to cut out SO many people, and now that its two months away, at least 4 times we've heard 'hey, I'm invited to your wedding, right?' from people we had to cut. It is very upsetting! But, back to your question, I think they say on acg. people get about 20% no''s....

Re: Guest List Blues...

We cut our list from 275 to 232. We have about 170 attending the wedding. It's usually a 20% No rate, but we are at about 22-23%, something like that. So, the reception will cost less than we had thought, which is a huge bonus for us.

Re: Guest List Blues...

We cut ours down but we did it right from the start. My FMIL wanted to have all these people that my FH hasn't seen in YEARS. He told her we weren't paying for them and if she wanted to invite certain people she would have to pay for them.

FYI- We guarenteed our hall a minimum of 100 people. I invited 130 and I fell short on my minimum. So many more people said no than I expected. I would definaltey have a B-list prepared should that happen to you too.

Re: Guest List Blues...

We had to make some cuts as well. When we booked the place, we really thought we were going to have a hard time getting 80 people to show up but when we actually sat down to do our lists we had over 200 people we wanted to invite!!! And our place only holds 160!!! Everyone we cut we put on a B list but I really don't think we will get to that. I feel bad that I am hoping for a bunch of NO's but what will we do if they all decide to come!! I know they won't because we have a lot of people from out of town. Like someone else said usually 20% say no...but people I thought would definately say no have been telling us that they are comming!!

Re: Guest List Blues...

I have heard many horror stories about parents swearing that 'Aunt Linda' will never come, just invite her so she feels included. Then Aunt Linda decided it would be fun to see the family and says YES. That happens ALL the time. DO NOT take a chance. Tell your MIL flat out that you CANNOT afford her friends, co-workers or extended family members and that she needs to promise to pay for anyone who RSVPs YES. Remember it is not just a per person cost either, there is 218% grat. plus 8.5% tax on your total guest count. So that adds up really quickly. You can be very nice about it, but be firm.
We are paying for 99.9% of our wedding and told our parents that any friends, co-workers or family NOT on our guest list must be paid by them. They agreed it was fair. You cannot chance needing a few thousand dollars 'extra' 2 weeks before your wedding.

Re: Guest List Blues...

I'm very happy that we didn't cut anyone...We invited 240 and had exactly our minimum 150 show up!!

we invited everyone with guests even if they were not dating anyone...we had about 30 singles show up...so that was part of our number drop and also we invited about 20 people from out of country. So really it was like 190 invited and 150 showed up...

so think about not inviting people with guest, unless they have been dating for 6 months or so?


btw...I totally agree with Michele that people you don't expect to show up will... my mom said my dad's aunt peany showed up to their wedding with 3 other guests!! I was hoping this would not happen to me...she responded no..

Re: Guest List Blues...

we ended up making our moms cut their list so that each of us would invite 60. his mom invited 81, my mom invited 74 and he and i invited 78. and that was with all of us cutting as many as possible...our responses were due on saturday and we are still waiting for a lot but so far our no rate is at 16%. a lot of people my FMIL said would be definite no's said yes, so i would say DO NOT invite people under the assumption they will say no. we have more people than we wanted but she's paying for what she went over and we'll squeeze everyone in. you don't want to get stuck having to pay for their extras, so make sure that your FMIL understands any she goes over she pays for and get the money as soon as all the responses come in.