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We invited about 160 guests and about 125 actually attended.
Some things to keep in mind are 1) destination wedding 2) # of OOT guests 3) time and location of your wedding like Friday wedding vs Saturday night wedding 4) if its on a holiday weekend 5) size of family.
I used a system I found on this board. For each guest, I assigned a percentage of likelihood that they would attend (50%, 95%, etc) in excel and then took a weighted average of the total. It actually gave me a pretty accurate estimate of how many guests I can invite to get to our ideal attendance level. I'm also a big finance and math geek so don't laugh!
GL!
It's been a while since I've taken any math...how exactly do you do the weighted average thing?
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I invited 101 people, including the officiant and his wife, and we were aiming to have at least 85 to hit our minimum that we guarunteed to our reception location. The due date for the RSVPs is today and not all the guests have responded (ARG!) but we expect 79 including the total who have already responded and our best guess for the ones who haven't. To be more specific, 67 have RSVPed yes, 11 no and 25 have not yet responded.
So it seems to me that your numbers are right on track, especially if you sent out save the dates in advance (we did).
PS if you have a minimum to hit you might want to invite more because we're now faced with a decision of inviting people who will clearly know they were B-list material because the wedding is only 3 weeks away, or paying for dinners that no one eats.
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my fi and I also assigned percentages and took a weighted average (we put ours in a google doc so we could share it) yay for big geeks!
Our wedding is out of town for most guests, so we expected a good number to decline (family that couldn't afford the crazy expensive flights, friends doing their medical residencies, etc). We invited 220 thinking we'd get 175, but we actually got 147! I'm glad the wedding ended up being what I consider the perfect size, but it goes to show, you can never really guess how many people are going to come!
k80-
Let's say you are inviting 103 guests.
1) Assign each guest a percentage to estimate likelihood they would attend (Like mom and dad probably get 100% but distant cousin from the other side of the world probably gets 5%)
2) Add up all the percentages for all 103 guests
3) Divide by 103, which usually gives you a weird number like 87.6573423% which represents the overall likelihood of someone to say yes, based on your best estimates.
Ok, I'm a total dork and so NOT a math person! lilneko69, does that 87.65% mean that that's the percentage of people from your total guest list that you can expect to attend?
I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, I'm just trying to understand it well enough to actually put it into practice. :-)
yep, andriab.
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i hope i did this math wrong.. we have invited 112, and my estimate is now 29 'yes'
this is wrong, right??? :) we have 26 'yes' already!
I think you have to look at the situations of each guest and their families. Do they have to travel? are you the first granchild/cousin getting married, even if a lot of travel is involved? that kind of thing.
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We are inviting 200 ppl, but hope to have 150 attend. That would be a 75% accept rate, which I've heard is reasonable.
The numbers I've heard have all been said the standard is 85% yes's. Even when the people live out of state.
Good luck!
We have a unique situation, as most of my family (in NC) won't be able to travel to our wedding in RI. Since I have a lot of extended family, we're actually sending out about 275 invites (so approx. 500 people total), but we're shooting for only about 150 people. When we sent out the STDs last week, we tried to guess who would be coming and I think we're going to hit anywhere from 125-175. Like someone said previously, it just really depends on your own personal circumstances.
we invited 160 and 120 are coming - exactly 75%. i've read that 85% is typical but for me and some of my friends it's closer to 75%. almost all of our guests are coming from out of town, so that might explain it.
We invited 119 (including President and Mrs. Obama) and had 86 attend (that includes 3 vendors). I think we had a pretty big difference, compared to what I've read. However, we budgeted a guest for every single invitee and most of them didn't bring anyone.
We invited 320 and had 220 which was obviously a huge difference - I was happy though because my budget was based on 250!
we invited seriously 62, 59 will be coming 1 is still pending; I may have one less if my friend's relationship doesnt work out before then
so the smaller the numbers the less there will be no's; everyhone I'm inviting we are close to so our rsvp rate is super high
:( I wanna save money; where are all the no's????
My original list was about 50, and that grew to about 60 that are suppposedly coming. When you get into larger numbers, I think you can definitely say 75- 85% will actually attend. For my small number, I still fully expect for a few people to not show up. Even people who RSVP yes will end up not showing up, I can almost guarantee it.
I think the estimate is usually around 80%. The exception to this is if you over-invited people and don't have enough room. Then, the acceptance rate is about 95-100%. I *swear* I've seen this happen about a hundred times!
We invited 122 and got 95 yesses. The day of, we had 92 guests. That's 75%.
ALL my family was from OOS and most flew in. 60% were my family/friends, 40% were his family/friends. We had mostly family, fewer friends.
We also invited people who said they were definitely coming, then declined. We also had a few who we really didn't think would come, but showed up. You just never know.
We invited 156. There are 109 attending. Might actually be 106 since there are a few last minute drop outs. But it's too late to change with the venue.
Although, we did invite a lot of out of town family (Philippines) so it was expected that they may not be able to make it. Of the local guests, I would say about 85-90% of them said yes.
we invited 190 and i had originally anticipated the count being about 170-175, but turns out we have 186 that will be coming
@bloodgo1 - We are in the early stages of receiving rsvps....but currently we have 41 yes and only 2 No...although we have been informed to expect 6 more No's soon. We invited 185-190 and would ideally like the final guest count to fall between 155-165, it's looking like we may be on the high end!
SOOO if we plan on inviting 250 we should tell the venue 200 the likelyhood being that maybe only 200 will come?!
or how does this work?
Your estimate is pretty on par to what our wedding ended up being...invited about 85 and ended up with 65.
Oh no...typically your venue doesnt require a final count until 2 weeks or so before the wedding, so by then you should know. Now as far as deposits, I would recommend you book at the lowest number and then just pay the difference if it exceeds. But in either case, if your venue can only hold 200 people....its russion roulette inviting 250 and HOPING 50 don't show up. Your declines will be related to distance guests have to travel, holidays, etc
ok so now what happens if i invite 50..35 say they can come..then on the wedding day 40 show up?
or what happens if 50 are invited...40 say yes...35 show up?
1.) what happens with the first scenario regarding the venue? what if we can't pay for them THAT day? how do we prepare for that :-/ and should i say something to them like "wow its a surprise seeing you here since you responded no to the invite." like it would have been polite of them to at least call me and let me know.
2.) now what happens with the second scenario regarding the no shows? isn't that rude? i mean if they can't make it because of something terrible happening (a death or serious illness i wouldn't be mad) but if they just didn't show up because they never really knew for sure if they could afford it but thought maybe so ill just say yes, then what?
can someone message me this?? i'm having a wedding in california (where we live) but our families live in oklahoma, pa, nj and other random states that requires them to drive. thanks!
Ha..and you know each one of those scenarios WILL happen...it always does...some will say yes, and not show....some will say no...and show....and some will even bring guests that you did not account for! As far as food, most venues prepare at least 10% more than you tell them....if it's a seated dinner or buffet, you can't really get by with telling them less guests than expected because everyone has to have a seat right?
Our wedding is in Texas and we have people coming from all over the country as well. The greater the distance, they may not come, unless they are very close to you...the economy will also play a factor. In our case, it seems like since we gave everyone an early notice (we have a year and a half long engagement and sent out save the date magnets 7/8 months in advace, people had a LOT of time to prepare).
Hope this helps!
We invited about 100, and had 73 guests (including ourselves).
When our STDs went out, the buzz from our friends and parents was that everyone was coming. Our preliminary guest list was looking to be 90-95! As the wedding got closer and closer, this didn't drop. When we started getting our RSVPs back, people were dropping like flies: long-term illnesses/surgeries, family problems, surprise vacations, etc. We were actually kind of happy in the end, because we came in under our total budget (we budgeted for 100, just in case).
lol! thank you! that does help. we are inviting about 50 but i know not that many will come so if 30 rsvp yes i'll just tell the venue 35 to be safe. idk lol ahh!
We invited 100 and we have 97 rsvp'd guests! Some invited guests said no, and some rude invited guests rsvp'd with uninvited guests.
If I were able to do it again, I wouldn't have sent STDs to so many people, because even though we'll probably be ok with numbers, it occasionally makes my stomach clench. We sent 160 STDs with a venue that maxes out at 150, and since then the guest list has swelled a little, to 168.
In the end, I think it'll be okay. The venue manager has told us that in a pinch, they can squeeze in 160, and we've already had some nos. Even with an 88% yes rate, we'll be under 150. But personally, I wish I had:
1. Sent out fewer STDs. Out of towners and super close friends only. There are a few people I sent STDs to that now, if push came to shove, I would be ok with cutting and now I can't.
2. Sent out 150 invites three months out.
3. Send out the rest of the invites only as nos trickled in.
Maybe it would have been wonky and annoying, but not having these freak-out moments I have now would be so worth it! Oh well.
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Hello Ladies!
I would ideally like to have my final guest count in the 80-85 range, but we will be inviting around 100 guests. So I was curious...how many guest did you invite and how many did you actually end up having? Thanks for helping!!!