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So...after we made the firm decision to buy the house, I cut my guest list from 130 to 87. Although it has been a very difficult process, I think we may even try to get it down to exactly 80. During this difficult process, I've been wondering what it's going to be like to have a small wedding. Every wedding that I have ever been to has been 150+ and I've always liked the thought of a full room.
Did you have to cut your guest list? How did you deal with it? How many guest are you having at your wedding?
I am having 70 guests. Closest friends and family only. The tricky thing is inviting single people... I've been lucky that I'm close enough to everyone to just explain that we have a small venue/ceremony/budget and don't have room for dates!
I was just at a wedding of 80 guests last month and I thought it was fine!
I am inviting 50 people. I want to be able to give every one my guests my personal attention. Also, I want to feed them well, have beautiful decorations.....and I paid a ton for my ring. I wouldn't be able to have a formal wedding if I didn't keep the guest list small. Fiancee still thinks that 50 is too many people.
we're at 75 confirmed right now, and it looks like we'll hit 80 at most, which is perfect in my mind - enough people that everyone knows someone, but i don't have to worry about greeting/feeding/thanking 200+ people. :) i am thrilled with the amount we have. plus, because it's only family/close friends, it is people who know us the best, therefore we get to have a bit more fun with everything - they expect/understand it because they know us!
I have the opposite problem - we wanted about 50 people and somehow now have 160 on the list. It's okay from a money perspective - my folks are being very generous (as appropriate, since about 90 of those extra people were added by my mom). But we really, really didn't want this big fancy thing. We just keep telling each other it WILL BE FUN. And really, its nice that my folks are so proud and happy that they just need to have everybody there.
I think a small, intimate wedding can be really great. As long as your venues are appropriately sized, so that you don't feel like your guests are sort of rolling around in the room, it will be lovely. My sister got married in a chapel that held 80 people on the main floor, and it was gorgeous. Our RD will be about 40 people, and the room is so fantastic - we keep saying that's really about what we wanted for the reception. And you will really be able to actually focus on your 80 guests, rather than wondering later if so-and-so was there or not.
I originally wanted 100 guest but my FI and father are the type that believes "the more the merrier." 100 became 150... 200... and now it's 250. I would love a small intimate wedding with people I know but with my culture my parents said it would be rude to not invite all their friends. I keep telling myself that everything will be ok. At the end of the day it will be just me and my lovely husband
I have to think positive otherwise I'll go nuts!
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We are inviting 150 people but I am really hoping that most of them will decline to come ... I'd rather have 75 people than 150!
We guaranteed 160 people when signing the contract for the venue, but we have about 200 on the list. We are hoping that after everyone RSVP's it will be around 160!
220 - or 232 with the wedding Party - it's so stupid of me but I always forget to add them in! LOL!
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We'll be inviting about 200 and anticipate about 120 will come. I have a lot of flaky family members.
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Inviting 63, expecting to be just under our 50 person limit. Like Niki, I think it's kinda too many people, but our list got bigger as time went by too =)
I have 111 invitations for 216 guests. Will not have count until July 15, 2008
The list started at 250 was down to as low as 175 but my FI added back to 216. Men.....
inviting 200, hoping to get 150! we'll see if that happens. good luck cutting! i tried and failed. =(
I guaranteed 130 at my venue so as long as I have that, I'm happy. I never wanted a big wedding and frankly, I'd rather have less than 100 people than 130. It'd be so nice to actually spend a significant amount of time with your guests, and I feel like it would be much more fun. My cousin's wedding was one of the best weddings I've ever been to and she had about 85 people. Everyone danced, and it felt much more comfortable b/c there weren't TONS of people you didn't know.
My hubby and I invited 60 guests and ended up with 50 attending--it was intimate, romantic and utterly fantastic to have such a small group of people. We were able to have a pretty upscale affair and since we had our wedding out of town, we added a lot of extras to the event, making it a weekend affair. best of luck with your decision and congrats on the house!
Thanks to a small venue, we're keeping it to under 60, including us. We both agreed that we wanted a celebration with our very closest family and friends and our goal is to spend some time with every person at our wedding. Dealing with single folks has been a concern, but most people understand. The only trouble we've had thus far is with a friend of FI's whom I've not met (she lives in another country), who now wants to bring her boyfriend. From what we can gather, this is a long-term relationship, so the etiquette points to inviting him as well, but neither of us has met him ever and with such a small guest list, each spot is precious. We've got our fingers crossed that this will work out...
In any case, if we hadn't gone with a venue with size restrictions, I'm sure the list would have increased to 80 or so with all the folks FI's parents want to invite or to accommodate people such as FI's friend or dates of single folks. However, it's worth it to deal with a few uncomfortable cases to keep the wedding to a size we are comfortable with. To celebrate with our larger social circle, we're having a second reception when we get back from our honeymoon. For those disappointed they didn't make the list, we emphasized that the wedding is pretty much family (FI has a LOT of family), but that we'll be having a larger reception later in the fall. That seems to help a lot.
Best of luck with the list and congrats on the house!
I'm inviting 130 people and it looks like about 120 will reply yes. I originally wanted to keep it below 100 for all the reasons stated above: cost saving, more intimacy, more time with guests, etc. However, FI wants everyone there and our guest list grew to 130. He keeps thinking that the cap is 150 and I always have to emphasize my need for a smaller guest list. It doesn't look like I'd get it down to 100, but I can deal with 120 as opposed to 150.
We are also inviting 200 and hoping for 150-180. The guest list has been my least favorite part of wedding planning by far!
Inviting nearly 90, but hoping for (and think we'll get) 60-70 guests.
Mine started at 100, and is now at 190!!!!!!! I hope to have no more than 120 RSVP. Not sure where we would put many more.
We're inviting about 180 people but many of those are a courtesy invite. Because our wedding is in Montana, we only expect between 70 and 120 people to attend. I know that's kind of a "span" there, but it remains to be seen who will come.
your question made me go and do a fresh tally on our guest list.
the number is scary, to me, bc originally we wanted a small intimate ceremony, but when family got involved, it got out of control.
our guest list, before any cutting stands at 282.
i told my caterer 130.
ummm, yeah.......
I haven't sent out invitations yet, but we are inviting 250 guests. It's hard to really count the exact numbers because Asian people do not understand what rsvp means!
We're inviting 50...so we're assuming around 30 or 40 will show up. Neither my FI nor I wanted a big wedding we're not into feeding and paying for people to be there just because we "know" them....
It's strictly family and good friends only! There'll be no "friend of a friend's baby" shananigans with us.
:)
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we're inviting about 240-50, hoping for 225. my dad first came to me with a list of 220 people ALONE (not including my mother, they are divorced). it has been a long uphill battle and at this point, i'm giving him 60, but he's pushing back quite a bit. I rationalized it by saying that my fiance's parents have 50 TOTAL between the two of them. it's been the least fun part of the wedding planning so far!
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We have 341 invited and are guessing we will have 250 attending. We originally planned on 175 attending but we're finding that several people that our parents knew "for sure" would never actually be able to attend are planning on attending.
We're trying to keep ours to about 75, including ~10 children. Though if we don't keep his mom in check, the final tally could easily balloon to 150+. Everyone from my family lives much further away, so maybe 20 at most will show from my side...
We think it is going to be around 200 invited with about 180 attending. We have severeal elderly people who will not make the trip and some others that will not be traveling but we want to invite them because they are inportant to us. just under half of our guest list will be traveling (includign us).
We wanted to a have about 125 max at the wedding but when we made the choice to have it on my family's property in my hometown the list suddenly grew. We had to invite all of my Aunts and Uncles and all of thier children as they own the land equally with my father. (It's just a bit rude to exclude someone from a big party on thier own property.) Since my Dad is one of seven that's a lot of people. And they alll have multiple kids, some married with kids, too!
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Our guest list sits at 65. I'm hoping to get at least 45-50 including wedding party.
Perfect, small, and more money can be spent on food and fun :)
Originally I thought our wedding would be about 100 guests. I totally under-estimated how big our families are. We ended up sending out invites for 170 and I hope to be at 130 to 140 when we get all the RSVP's back.
The RSVP deadline is May 21 and as of right now we are at 47 attending with 111 RSVPs still missing.
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260 Ackkk! As long as I don't get more than 200 "yes" I'll be happy. Our goal was 160 - but I think that's a little ambitious.
Haha, reading these was funny, because I can relate to every single one of you. Sweeney, it's funny that you always forget to include the wedding party, I seem to always forget myself and my fiance. Whoops! We've got a guarantee with our venue of 175. Looking at my trusty excel spreadsheet, I have 277 (including kids), and I then have a probable list which is ending up right around 226 total. Fiance wanted no more than 50 to begin with.. d'oh! He isn't comfortable with big crowds of people he doesn't know. But my parents are divorced and both remarried, all with big families, and tons of friends, and apparently had to invite everyone they've ever spoken to. His family is small and parents don't have a ton of friends, so needless to say, there won't be a bride's side and a groom's side. I made it a rule though, if fiance and I have never met the person (or they've never heard of us!!!) they aren't invited!!! Otherwise, we may have been at 400! God help me...
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We want to buy a house as well so we are trying to keep the wedding to 60 people. Only the nearest and dearest!! The only problem is- every extra penny spent on the wedding means less money for the house!! It's a vicious cycle! But I can't wait for our intimate day!!!
we have about 190 on the guest list. however, if 130 or less show up, we'll save $1.5k on the venue and tons and tons on food/drink. i hate hoping that people won't show up for my wedding, but...i hope (some) people won't show up for my wedding. there. i said it.
We've invited 227 (including 2 kids and a baby), and right now have 165 coming. There are 18 people we haven't yet heard from, but it looks like we're going to have 170-180 total, which is what we were aiming for.
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My oh my, I'm glad I read the second page because I was feeling a bit ridiculous about how many people will be invited to our wedding. We are at 360. FI and I both have HUGE extended families (200+ people) that we are super close to. Not inviting them to our wedding would not be an option. We are hopeful that we will end up at 250-275. The wedding is destination for 50% of our guests and close to Christmastime so we know some won't make it.
350 is the magic number. we hope to be right there!
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