Guest list.... % of declines?????

I have no idea, but, I am posting so I can follow this thread! I want to know too. I am trying to cut people from our guest list as we have about 8 - 10 people too many, but we know some will decline.

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We invited 82 to the day, and had 77 acceptances. Then H's grandparents, who had accepted, couldn't make it on the day as his gran was ill, so we were down to 75.

Much higher decline rate on the evening ones though, which was understandable.

We invited 50 and so far only have one who isn't coming and he's 15 months old and not coming as his parents wanted a child free weekend ;-)

We invited 84 to the day and had 4 declines (2 couples) evening decline was slightly higher, but not by much. Hope that helps

I don't think anyone will be able to give a % as it completely depends on your guests...we had only 20 daytime guests with close family only and thought we couldn't go wrong and we're down to 17 ? Tables getting lonelier all the time haha..stuck at that though and no more cancellations hopefully!

Why not give an earlier deadline for guests to reply by and as soon as you hear declines from anyone you can add others on the list instead if theres anyone you'd love to fit in to the day?

We invited 68 to the day and 65 accepted.

We invited 70 and have 63 but those that aren't attending are children if people who are attending who we expected might not come and my grandparents, who aren't well enough (we also knew this might be the case). We knew early on almost all our day guests would come though because they are all very close friends or family. I'm sure we wouldve had a higher decline rate if we'd had bigger numbers (though we were meant to have 50 so it definitely expanded!) Eve we've had about 15 decline out of 40 odd but it's a long way for a lot of people to go for the eve so we expected it.

I'd suggest not overinviting for the daytime and just bumping people up if you have extras later on as otherwise you could end up with too many.

Thx for your help ladies.

I will have a back up list and the idea of an early RSVP deadline is great...II'd send them out today if I could... but h2b is so laid back he's practically horizontall!

We invited 80, had 6 declines and ended up with 84! some evening guests I didn't feel I could bump without bumping others too.

That's why we're struggling with our guest list.

If I invite aunt a b and c

H2b has to invite a b and c frm his family too. The next thing you know the cost has dramatically increased.

Likewise if I cut joe blogs and his wife h2b needs to do the same.

Aaarrrggghhhh. ... didn't realise that the guest list would be this stressful ?

We had 65 in the day and 64 turned up. 4 pulled out the week before but we managed to bump up evening guests.

Evening wise we had 10 not turn up I think

We invited 48 and all of them accepted. I think out of the extra 40 evening guests only 3 declined.

This is probably going to be really counter-intuative, but from what I have witnessed of our own friends, those that got married on a Saturday had a much higher decline rate than those that got married in the week! I think maybe because people are more likely to already have something planned for a Saturday that they can't get out of, and because people love an excuse to have a day off work!

We're getting married on a Weds in the summer holidays, and have had only one person decline because they are on holiday (we expected a lot more!) and one couple who are only coming to the evening as they have run out of work holiday days (it's their wedding this year, so all their holiday is rightfully going on their wedding and honeymoon!) And that's it! All the rest are really happy to have an excuse to take a couple of days off mid week and make it into a little holiday!

Suzie88.... that's something I never thought of. .. thank you.

I will definitely keep this in mind.

Jem-J..

I think early RSVPs are definitely going to be the way to go.

Now I need to decide whether to bother with Save the Dates or just say s*d it and go straight for early invites???

Hmmmmm.... so many decisions!

Ive been going back and forth on what day to pick - a friday, thursday or sunday. I was worried people wouldnt come on a weekday. But the lady at a venue said to me yesterday 'if people want to be there they will make the effort no matter what the day' and it's true, if they genuinely cant then fair enough, they will be given plenty of warning, but if they dont want to make the effort then we dont want them there (without sounding harsh!)

We are a Thursday wedding too, next month. We invited 60 day guests and have 57 confirmed as coming. They all recievd save the dates a year before the wedding. Only three people that couldnt make it was a friend who is being a medic out in uganda since finishing med school for 6 weeks over the wedding, a friend who cant get it off work so is coming in the evening and my cousin, who has a gcse exam but is coming to the evening.

Xx

We're getting married on Friday, so in the Easter hols. We invited 49 to the day and all initially accepted. We have only found out in the last week that 4 people are not coming.

Ours is also a Thursday in the summer holidays and we haven't had any declines. But we are only having 36 day guests.

Some people won't be able to get the day off though. Any teachers will struggle to get a weekday off so saying they can't be bothered is harsh!

A HUGE THANK YOU to all of you lovely hitched people!

I aactually think we have FINALLY cracked our guest list issue. .. phew.

Cousins are off tye list completely.

Aunts uncles etc are evening only.

Now we can invite all of our friends and their children to the day.

And.... because our day adults number less than the maximum package allowance we can exchange these surplus

Places foe double the number in children! That's saving us money... yay!

If we get any declines then we will bump evening guests to day due to early RSVP date.

This also now means we can invite all my school mummy friends and their children to the evening too as additional evening guests are much cheaper than day ones.

I hope we haven't forgotten anyone now ?

Ive emailed my venue so we are now awaiting our revised quote (millionth draft!)

Thx again. Xxx

I guess I was referring to my own situation, I am a teacher (I have has days off for friends weddings) our weekday would be in the holidays so most people would be able to get the day off if they do well in advance, and both being teachers we know a lot of our friends are off!

I'm a teacher too... hence mid week wedding in the summer hols.

Most of our friends are either teachers or shift workers so midweek school holidays seemed the best... and cheapest option.

Daffodilly, that is exactly why we chose mid-week summer holidays. I teach, OH can have time off whenever. But most of our friends are either in teaching or nursing (really don't know how that happened as we are both super squeamish!) And pretty much all the others are shift based, so find it a lot easier to get time off mid-week than on a weekend.

Summer holidays basically dictated our wedding date as I wanted at least a week to prepare pre-wedding/post-school, and we wanted to go on our honeymoon as soon as possible after the wedding. Summer holidays were the only way to do this!

Unless people have already booked summer holidays, you will probably find most of them will find a way to make it if at all possible!