Guest list - are you 'over-inviting'?

daisiegg

Hi everyone, happy sunny Monday!

I FINALLY pinned OH down at the weekend to make his list of friends and family, so we have a guest list shaping up :j

We are in perhaps a strange position in that there is very little wiggle-room on our numbers. We need 80 for the day. This is the venue's minimum number, but it's also the maximum we can afford, so we don't want to really go higher than that. We can invite quite a few more to the evening.

The list we compiled over the weekend for day guests came to 90 guests. OH reckons we should just invite all 90 as he thinks 10-15% of them will end up not coming.

I'm slightly uncomfortable with this because IF all 90 end up coming, the extra 10 will cost us two thousand pounds that we could do without spending. And we can't exactly wait for 90 to RSVP yes and then tell 10 of them "actually, you can only come to the evening!"

There are people on the list who could easily be 'downgraded' to evening guests. I have a fairly big family but OH has five (!) family members, so we have been able to fill up the list a lot with friends and work colleagues etc. Some of these wouldn't be at all surprised to only get invited to the evening.

What would you do? Would you send out 90 and hope to end up with around 80 actually coming, or cut 10 out of the day list?

Thanks!

daisiegg

Oh also, what are you doing about plus ones? We have decided to invite plus ones of older guests i.e. work friends who have been married for years etc and who always go places as a couple, but not necessarily all my cousins' plus ones. One of my cousin has a girlfriend who has been around for years and they're getting married next year, so we'll invite her as she is part of the family - but all my other cousins in their late teens/early twenties always seem to have someone on the go that they bring to family parties, but not necessarily the same person twice....do you think it would be ok to not include plus ones for them?

Then there's a problem in that the cousin with the fiance who we will invite has a sister, who also has a fiance....who no one has met as he never comes to family things, and who the family really don't like as they think he's bad for her and tries to keep her from contacting her family etc....but could we invite one sibling's fiance and not the other sibling's fiance? I say 'fiance' loosely in that they have been engaged for about three years, she doesn't have a ring, and they have no plans on setting a date. Hmmm........

irishjohn

I would decide who you would like to invite to the daytime event and who you would like to invite to the evening event and send the invites to them. If you can only afford to pay for 80 then only invite 80 and save yourself £2000.

If you invite 80 and only 70 accept then you have choices

either pay up for the 10 unused places - it still fits your affordability budget or make personal calls to 10 people on the evening list and be honest - tell they they were on the subs list and they have been lucky, there's a seat and a meal going spare if they want it.

I'm just wondering do day guests and evening only guests make a difference in the value of the present they give? And do guests who cannot come bother giving presents at all?

I am so glad i decided a long time ago to refuse all wedding invitations.

wanchai_2

irishjohn wrote: »

I am so glad i decided a long time ago to refuse all wedding invitations.

... how curious, then, that you're on the weddings board.

Apart from that, I agree with your post. This is what I would do, and the 'upgraded' guests will understand, especially if they're work colleagues who wouldn't expect a day invite to begin with.

We're not over inviting btw! We verbally invited most of our 100 guests well before the invitations went out, so we have a good idea of numbers already HTH xx

RainbowDrops

We didn't over-invite as we had a maximum capacity that we couldn't exceed.

There were a few relatives that "Needed and invite" despite it being unlikely that they'd make it. But we sent those out first & waited for their decline to be certain.
Then as other declines came in we sent out additional invites.

trying_2_b_good

We didn't over-invite either. However, we did text/speak to everyone to give them the date before invites went out - so we knew who couldn't come - which turned out to only be one person who had already booked a week abroad over the date.

I'd def go with inviting 80 and then waiting to upgrade if needed. I didn't send out evening invites until 2 months before, and day invites 3 months before (you may need to hassle for RSVPs).

As for plus ones, we gave them to 2 of our guests (we had met them and they'd been going out a couple of years). Both have now split (wedding was 8 months ago!). It's up to you how you play it - I would invite them for the evening but not the day if possible. You can over-invite for evening because not everyone will eat their full share of the buffet.

Idiophreak

daisiegg wrote: »

We are in perhaps a strange position in that there is very little wiggle-room on our numbers. We need 80 for the day. This is the venue's minimum number, but it's also the maximum we can afford, so we don't want to really go higher than that. We can invite quite a few more to the evening.

We didn't over-invite, as such, we just invited everyone we wanted there and figured that if some people didn't drop out, we'd save a couple of quid...It's much tougher if you've a limit on the numbers FWIW, we only had about 7% drop out...so I think inviting 90 is pushing your luck..maybe 85?

daisiegg wrote: »

Oh also, what are you doing about plus ones? We have decided to invite plus ones of older guests i.e. work friends who have been married for years etc and who always go places as a couple, but not necessarily all my cousins' plus ones.

These aren't really +1s, though, are they...a +1 is when you just give someone an extra "space" at the wedding to bring an unspecified guest.

We didn't give any +1s at our wedding, at all.

We applied the following rules to our wedding:
1) If we know the person's partner, they can come.
2) If they've been together for a good while, they can come.
3) If the person would otherwise not know anyone, they can come.
4) If we don't like them, they can't come

irishjohn wrote: »

I'm just wondering do day guests and evening only guests make a difference in the value of the present they give? And do guests who cannot come bother giving presents at all?

We give less if we're evening guests (which is quite wrong, when you think about it...but it's the "done thing"). It's very personal whether you give a gift if you can't go. I think most people who are invited give something, though.

lisajane8482

We aren’t over-inviting, if any day guests RSVP that they cannot attend then we will upgrade evening guests.

As for +1’s, if we haven’t met their partners they can come to the evening only. All evening guests have + partner where applicable.

Olokia

I had a minimum of 50 and wanted only to pay for 50 so I was in the same position as you. We over invited but my wedding was on a bank holiday monday though and we were inviting people from USA, France, Germany etc so knew some people couldn't come.

There were a few cousins on the reserve list that we had to end up using and they didn't mind when we personally called them and invited them even though it was less than a month to the wedding.

If you explain that you are restricted by numbers and after inviting the must-invites they were next on the list and really want them there now that there is space. or something.

irishjohn

wanchai wrote: »

... how curious, then, that you're on the weddings board.

No - I just log onto the forum and browse the new posts page - i find it more entertaining than Breakfast Television, and sometimes I just have to contribute!

BugglyB

About your cousins fiance who doesnt come to stuff and tends to isolate her. I would consider inviting him. Its fair if you've invited her sisters fiance. Chances are he may decline, and it doesnt give him the chance to say to her 'see, I told you your family hates me'. With that many guests, if he does come you wont really notice him.