Estimating the number of guests who will attend

Personally I wouldn't invite more than the capacity - although I know others have taken this route it is risky.

% of guests who will attend really depends on your guests. I'm expecting a very high proportion because I know it will take a full on disaster for them to miss it!

I'd like to know that too! There are usually rough percentages you can go by for estimating food and drink per guest, so there must be an average number of guests who can't make it...

Out of 68 guests invited to the day, we had declines from 4 - 2 were on holiday and the other 2 had a sudden bereavement.

I wouldn't invite more than a venue can hold for the day/wedding meal. If you have several declines, contact some of your evening guests and ask them if you would like to be bumped to day guests. Most people understand due to space/finances the wedding couple cannot invite everyone to the day, and most people will be delighted to be bumped.

Some may be funny about it (i.e. not being on your day list from the very start), but if they are you probably don't want them there anyway!

When we got engaged we wrote down a list of family and friends who we would like to invite and who would come to the wedding. the total was about 60 so we found a venue that was suitable for at least 60 guests.

There were only about 4-5 people for the day that couldnt make it but there were also some people that we had forgotten to invite.. so with some not being able to make it we replaced them with others and our final number for the day is 61 now so not a bad guess to start with really ?

Most of our day guests are family so they were pretty much guaranteed to come. so it also depends on the type of people/who you are planning on inviting as well...

Hope that helps x

We've got a venue that can hold 100 guests (at a push) but we can only afford to feed about 70. We've got a list of 65 that are must-invites but a further 30 we'd like to invite if we could!

So, do we invite all 90 and hope 20 can't come? Invite the top 65 and then invite from the B-list if it turns out we have room? Invite just the top 65 and hope we don't have too many drop outs?

We're not having a day-evening split, so we can't really do it that way... Conundrum!!

Our of nearly 80 inviteees, we only had one couple decline..one!!

I would invite your top 65 from ur A list and put a 'RSVP by a certain date (ie 3 months before ur wedding)' on ur invites.

Once the date has arrived you can see how many are coming and then if you have extra room for the B list you can invite them as there is still plently of time before the date to arrange childcare/holidays/outfits etc etc

I think we'll do that - probably the safest bet!

@Nutella, Thanks for your input! I wish I had friends who would stick to my wedding like this and be sure only a disaster would mean they wouldn't! Maybe they are and I am being paranoid?

@MrsC & @flowmojo Thanks for the insight! Shame about the bereavement But if I have a turnout like that, I'm happy already!

@DuckyBum yeah! We have a list of "reserve people" as well to invite after we got the RSVPs, we will be bumping people like crazy. You are absolutely right, if people are funny about getting bumped, better without them!

@Sash2610 Thanks for the idea! But that doesn't help with the choosing the venue at the moment...

@Fryia123, I saw you decided to use method, good luck with it!

Thanks everyone for the reply and still waiting for the magical calculator, if anyone finds it, lol