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Wedding RSVPs
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What is your collective experience with rates of RSVPs' for wedding receptions?

We're planning an immediate family only ceremony in July with a bigger friends and family reception in October.

Does anyone know the rule of thumb for % of actual attendees vs. invites sent? I'm trying to book a venue, and have no idea of how to ballpark the # of guests.
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Re: Wedding RSVPs [QRgirl] [ In reply to ]
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I had a 10-20% no answer rate. You will have to call each and every one of them. But for planning purposes, assume they are coming.

good luck! ;-)

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Re: Wedding RSVPs [QRgirl] [ In reply to ]
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The rule of thumb, I believe, is usually 2/3 of your guest list comes. That being said, we had something like a 97% acceptance rate and that's with everyone but my own family traveling (via plane or 5+ hour car ride) in for the event so be very careful! In fact it was 100% acceptance but at the last minute a few people had family emergencies come up.


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Re: Wedding RSVPs [QRgirl] [ In reply to ]
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I had a 10-20% no response rate - and yes, you get to call them all individually.

20-25% accepted but were no shows.
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Re: Wedding RSVPs [QRgirl] [ In reply to ]
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We invited about 150 and had just over 100 attend. Can't remember if we had to call anyone, but about 2/3 showed up, which was what we had planned on when we booked the venue/caterer.

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Re: Wedding RSVPs [QRgirl] [ In reply to ]
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I sent out 205 invites and about 150 people attended. Not counting the last minute illnesses and other emergencies.
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Re: Wedding RSVPs [i-tri] [ In reply to ]
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i-tri wrote:
I had a 10-20% no response rate - and yes, you get to call them all individually.

20-25% accepted but were no shows.

Are you serious? 20-25% said they'd come to your wedding and then didn't show up?

I was married fifteen years ago, and I believe we had 100% of the acceptances show up. Almost the only invitees who didn't accept were my aunt and her family: she wasn't speaking to her sister (my mom).

Have people become that rude in only fifteen years?

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Re: Wedding RSVPs [klehner] [ In reply to ]
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I agree, that seems unacceptably high to me for a false affirmative.

I'd imagine it depends where the wedding is relative to most of your friends and family.
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Re: Wedding RSVPs [QRgirl] [ In reply to ]
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About 150 out of 200. But the percentage probably depends on the amount you invite. the more you invite, the greater number of more casual friends that probably won't show. IIRC about 5-10 of the 50 that didn't show were last minute cancellations due to illness, etc.
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Re: Wedding RSVPs [QRgirl] [ In reply to ]
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Two of my best friends got married a couple of years ago and I told her "just use Evite". I was (sort of) kidding, but for those of us permanently chained to a computer it's much easier to get a response than from a mailed-out (and mailed back) invitation. She called me a few weeks after I would have received the invitation and asked if I had responded. Well, no - but you knew I was coming. See, you should have used Evite!


Me being helpful aside, I've heard that 15% +/- 5% is about average for invited attendees not coming. That 25% who responded in the affirmative and then no-showed strikes me as an outlier... (as do the 100% affirmative lists - though if the guest list is extremely small that could skew the statistics as well).


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Re: Wedding RSVPs [QRgirl] [ In reply to ]
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i'd say 10% is a decent rule of thumb, but our wedding list kept changing and expanding and getting people replaced by people who COULD show up that i don't think i could actually put a number on it! we did send a handful that were purely 'courtesy' invites - 90-year-old aunts on the other side of the country who'd never be able to make it but would appreciate the thought.

i'd be careful, though, and pretty much just bank on every single person you invite showing up. if they don't, you can save some $, but when they do, you won't be caught out without enough chairs!

-mike

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Re: Wedding RSVPs [iron_mike] [ In reply to ]
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That's sort of the issue, we have several people on the list that we know for sure won't come. Old folks that live on the other side of the country.

We have the list divided into probably will come and definitely won't come, but even then the probably wills won't all come!
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Re: Wedding RSVPs [QRgirl] [ In reply to ]
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yeah, we also found as the day gets closer, you have lots of good friends who you can just talk to straight up: "hey, we're trying to plan the dinner. no BS, can you make it or not?"

another thing we did is to make separate invites for dinner and the dance. we'd be happy for almost anyone to come to the party, but could afford to feed only so many. this was OK, because i had some cousins, for instance, who lived in town and had a newborn. so after the ceremony they could go home, have a feed and a change, and then come later for the dance. ditto my wife - her dad's side is massive (1 sibling but 9 cousins who are LIKE siblings?!?), so they booked their own dinner out, made a little family reunion of it, and then come for the dance.

lastly, we also absolutely hated how, when you say you're getting married, everyone's suddenly an expert and wants to tell YOU how to plan your own bloody wedding. so i'll shut up now.

-mike

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/
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