When sending out invitations, what is the generl rule of thumb for how many no's you get. I heard once 25% or so. Needless to say we have gone over our original headcount by quite a few and I'm wondering if I can count on a bunch not coming or if I need a second job...LOL
PegaLega
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Re: How many people say no?
Ithink the rule of thumb is 20% but I dont reallythink you can go by this b/c everyone is different. We were able to go over our list and KNOW who would definitely say yes, who would definitely not come andwho were maybes. try going over your list and seeing who is left and who may say no etc.
We were 2 short of our minimum, when we did our list of yes and no we figured we would be at 150 exactly, we wound up at 148 the day of.
LeeLee111
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Re: How many people say no?
Posted by PegaLega
Ithink the rule of thumb is 20% but I dont reallythink you can go by this b/c everyone is different. We were able to go over our list and KNOW who would definitely say yes, who would definitely not come andwho were maybes. try going over your list and seeing who is left and who may say no etc.
We were 2 short of our minimum, when we did our list of yes and no we figured we would be at 150 exactly, we wound up at 148 the day of.
How many people did you invite total?
mRm2008
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Re: How many people say no?
Posted by PegaLega
Ithink the rule of thumb is 20% but I dont reallythink you can go by this b/c everyone is different. We were able to go over our list and KNOW who would definitely say yes, who would definitely not come andwho were maybes. try going over your list and seeing who is left and who may say no etc.
We were 2 short of our minimum, when we did our list of yes and no we figured we would be at 150 exactly, we wound up at 148 the day of.
wow you figured really close. i shot low on my headcount b/c i really have no idea who is going to say yes and who will not show
wundmoretime
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Re: How many people say no?
I don't think there is a percentage. I think it depends on who you invite and their hx. I also say to go lower on the count, unless you don't meet the min. Maybe 2-4 people less. Sometimes things happen that you would never expect that person to miss (1st wedding-good friend had a major stroke day of the wedding). There will be someone who doesn't show or cancels last min. You can always add a person or 2. I think it is better than paying for people that don't come. We are looking at people on the FH side of the family that didn't come to the other 2 brother's wedding, we expect them to be a no. Others that come to everything-yes.
LongDistanceFiance
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Re: How many people say no?
I've heard 20-25% normally. I think it depends on the time of year and how close you are to regular vacation times. We sent out STDs a year in advance and still had about 30 fewer people than we had guaranteed at the RH and probably 50 or so fewer than expected and we suspect it was because of Christmas, but we really don't know.
PegaLega
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Re: How many people say no?
Posted by LeeLee111
Posted by PegaLega
Ithink the rule of thumb is 20% but I dont reallythink you can go by this b/c everyone is different. We were able to go over our list and KNOW who would definitely say yes, who would definitely not come andwho were maybes. try going over your list and seeing who is left and who may say no etc.
We were 2 short of our minimum, when we did our list of yes and no we figured we would be at 150 exactly, we wound up at 148 the day of.
How many people did you invite total?
We invited 208....we invited about 25 people we knew could not come b/c you have to kind of thing. My percentage was more around 25% then the normal. But we had a HUGE list of people that out of respect had to be invited If you cancel those people out it come out to be about 20% for us
HTH
It does really depend on your list. We had people we thought were a definitely NO actually come
PegaLega
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Re: How many people say no?
Posted by mRm2008
Posted by PegaLega
Ithink the rule of thumb is 20% but I dont reallythink you can go by this b/c everyone is different. We were able to go over our list and KNOW who would definitely say yes, who would definitely not come andwho were maybes. try going over your list and seeing who is left and who may say no etc.
We were 2 short of our minimum, when we did our list of yes and no we figured we would be at 150 exactly, we wound up at 148 the day of.
wow you figured really close. i shot low on my headcount b/c i really have no idea who is going to say yes and who will not show
Its better to shoot low...and pay more then shoot high and pay for imaginary people. If you guarantee 170 you pay for 170 even if you only have 150, at least if you guarantee 140 and have 150 you pay for 150. hope that makes sense
PreshusSmurf
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Re: How many people say no?
We had a much higher % of no's than everything we estimated and expected.
One of the reasons were a lot of OOT guests that we thought would come weren't able to make it.
But the biggest reason is that we invited all of our adult unmarrieds with guests ... even those who were not in a relationship. We didn't feel it was our decision to make, we wanted everyone to have the option of bringing someone. And I'd say about 90% of them did not bring a date, they came alone. Which was fine ... except that we based all our numbers on *some* of them bringing a date for the evening
Also, wanted to add a link to this thread b/c it might be helpful:
We had a higher amount of no's than we originally anticipated. 206 were invited, and 151 guests (including us) attended. Our guarantee was 150, so we just made it.
amytee
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Re: How many people say no?
We had about 20%.
LeeLee111
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Re: How many people say no?
Thanks so much for the help, I feel much better. We have to guarantee 150, right now we have 192 on the list. At the end of the day we will probably hit 200. I was worried that if 200 show we'd be in trouble paying for an extra 50 guests but everything you've said makes a lot of sense.
Thanks
jenn122397
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Re: How many people say no?
the general rule of thumb is 20% i invited 250 had 175 20% would have been 50 no's but i had 75 (could have had something to do with my date - holiday weekend?)
Eternalyyourz
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Re: How many people say no?
ha.. I heard about 17-10% but I heard the number jumps if you have a lot of out of towners and is way less if everyone is local and close friends/family. good luck- I hope you dont need a second job.. though I am working 2 jobs right now
