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You might be surprised about which of your foreign invitees show up -- a number of people from Australia who I invited on a 'we'd love to see you but know it's unlikely' principle have already contacted us to let us know they're coming and how much they're looking forward to it.
I'm glad, as they're within our budget -- but surprised!
Our 'harsh' cut saw cousins leave the list rather than close friends -- it increased the guest list by around 30, so it was easier to make a 'no cousins' rule.
It just depends on WHO you are inviting. The higher your out of town guest count, the lower your response rate but it's tought to guess. People I thought would travel to the wedding didn't. People who I never imagined would travel to the wedding did.
We had a large number of out of town guests invited (70+) and were aiming for 100 - 120 guests. We sent out the invites 2 months in advance and sent out to 150 people. Although I had never planned on having a "B" list, when responses coming back and I could see how many people were having to decline, we did a second round of invites and added 20 friends we had hated to exclude from the first round of invites. Because we had started sending out invites so early, the second round still went out a month in advance so hopefully no one caught on. This enabled us to have just about 100 guests which was exactly what we wanted.
I don't know if that's realistic. Why don't you send a first wave of invitations to family with an RSVP date 8 wks before the wedding, then at 8 weeks invite friends if your numbers work out?
We invited 235 and 175 came. 35 of the "no"s were DH's out of state family who we knew would not be able to make it (flights, money, etc). We were surprised that we had so many "yes's" because our venue was 2-3 hours from where most guests lived. It was so much fun havning everyone there : )
@wonderlanded- we're actually inviting the out of country guests desperately hoping they can all come! Heh. Many of them are our best friends and the idea of our wedding without them makes us sad. I hope we get a lot of "surprise" yeses as you did!
@FallFlowers- Inviting super early is a great idea! I'd actually want to send out invites 3-4 months out though, just because of the number of guests who don't live in the area so that I could send a second round of invites out at the 2 month mark for the no-rsvps. Hopfully not too early for etiquette and guests! It makes me feel better knowing you started by inviting 150 (like I want to!) and that you were still able to dip into the "B list" to extend invites. Yay!
@Erindesmar- I think I'll definately be doing the rounds of invites idea! I'll just make up bunches of extra invitations so I can cover the first and second rounds!
How many other people invited around 150 guests? How many did you end up having at your wedding? Did you get to dip into your "B list" at all once the RSVPs starting rolling in?
I'm going to agree that it really depends on who you invite. So far we have about 115 on our guest list and we're pretty sure 100 will come.
We invited 314 (this is including a guest for every single person, the strong majority of them we anticipated coming alone), our count after RSVPs was 225 (this was with some estimation for the non-responses), and 218 attended.
I would buget for it, but I invited ~150 and 90 something showed. I kinda wish I'd invited a handful of more people, but then I would've risked it being TOO crowded.
I also think it depends if your 150 includes dates. Because some people might not be able to get a date (sad but true) and that changes the number too.
@cannotwait- Those are the numbers I am hoping for!
@starcharades- The 150 does includes "dates" in the sense that we're counting significant others/fiances/partners. We have very very few single friends at this point in our lives. Of those who are single, they all would have a handful or more people they know at the wedding, so they wouldn't need a date to feel comfortable. And really, its hard to keep the list at 150 or fewer as is, without inviting "dates" we don't know and have never met.
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I am curious, if I were to invite 150 people to my wedding, what is the likely amount of people to actually show up? A great many of these people will be traveling from around the country and a good 10-15 will be from outside the US (Japan, Germany, South Korea, Canada). I am just curious because we are aiming for 100 or fewer people at the wedding, but we have 150 people we'd like to extend invitations to. Unfortunately, when we did the "Harsh" guest list cut (parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts/uncles, and cousins) it left no room for friends OR other relatives we'd like to celebrate with us. Frankly, if my wedding is 100% just family, I know I won't find it as enjoyable as I would if I could invite my close friends. Is it realistic to expect 100 or fewer guests when 150 would receive invitations?