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Establish some ground rules - invite only adults 18 and up (we are doing 16 and up); only add a plus one of they are married, engaged, living together or in a longterm serious relationship
Write down a list of people who you can't imagine having a wedding without. Only send save the dates to family ... your relationships with friends and other acquaintances could change. Just remember, save the dates = invitation.
I had that problem with my mom. She kept saying "but they're not going to come." And I kept saying, "You don't know that for sure, did they tell you that!" It was awful! Finally, we just had to really narrow it down to first cousins only, no extended family after that (we're very close to our 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc cousins) and super super close friends. It was brutal. But we're having a small wedding, the venue only holds so many so there's nothing we can do. Just stand your ground and cut the list!
i'm having the SAME problems. i did my A and B lists, but my mom wants to invite her cousins (my second cousins). she's offered to pay for them. i think if i fall in that trap where i allow my parents to pay for whoever they want to invite, then they get more control of the guest list and i risk having alot of people that i hardly know at my wedding.
So there's supposed to be this window of time from inviting the B list people, depending on how many A listers RSVP. What's a good time frame to wait, and how do you prevent the B list people from finding out that they were invited later on?
Just a piece of advice: only expect, at most, 80 percent of your A list to come. We're having a small wedding. We invited 100 people. We expected about 75-80 to come because most people we invited were close friends and family. When we first sent out the invites, our mom's said that EVERYONE was planning on coming, with the exception of a few people. As in, we were expecting 95 people based on preliminary word-of-mouth. We're now about two days from our RSVP deadline, and we're right at the 75 mark. Things come up. One couple had a baby early, and they would have to travel, so they decided to not come, even though they were planning on it. Some elderly family members booked a hotel room, but ended up becoming ill, and won't make it. My best friend from HS had some personal issues come up in her family and can't make it.
We were terrified at first because honestly, affording 95 people would have been tight when we were expecting 80 max. So it all worked out in the end. We were originally shocked at our 90 percent acceptance rate because we'd never heard of one so high. But that quickly diminished.
But yeah, moral of the story, not everyone will come. Even people who say they will.
We had this problem with my brother's wedding. The bride kept saying that her family wouldn't come because they were out of state. As it turns out they ended-up having more then half of the guests. We thought we'd only have 180 people and it turned out to be 250 people! You have to go with the percentages that they give you on these sites. About 20-30% won't come. The rest will unless it is a destination wedding then who knows there!
I just went through the same problem!! Complete with the "not everyone is going to come" from my mom, friends, and our coordinator. (So far we've only gotten 5 nos of 80 responses (215 invited), so I'm winning that argument)
We beat the problem by only allowing those with serious significant others, engaged or married to bring guests. Yes, some people are disappointed but they'll get over it. And if they can't understand, they don't belong at your wedding!
Can't agree more with GaBgal - don't send Save the dates to people you're not 100% completely sure you want to invite.
I am already over because of this line of thought. At least my reception location (my parent's home) has room to add more tables & chairs. The ceremony doesn't so people will be standing. Oh well :(
We didn't even send save-the-dates (secretly with the hopes that some people just wouldn't be able to come - how bad is that?).
I'm glad I'm not the only one in this boat. Thanks!
It drives me nuts when my fiance says "they're not going to come!" I have nightmares about everyone on our 300 guest guest list showing up! I agree with the guidelines idea, it seems to work and then no one can really get mad, because it's not like they're singled out.
The invitations have gone out so hopefully everything will work out ok. We've cut people and made our B lists so we will see. People have already started buying us stuff off of our registry and we've received our first two responses.
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Is anyone else having a hard time narrowing down their guest list? We can fit 250 in our reception site and it's hard to narrow down the list with big families and lots of friends. We have the A and B lists, but it is still hard. The groom, of course, thinks that not many of his people will come. BUT WHAT IF THEY DO?
Any recommendations or thoughts to keep a bride from going crazy?