Hot Searches:

Tags on this Entry

Tags:
 

Sponsors

Your Graphic Ad Here

 

 
Open Question's Picture
Open Question About: Do you have a question for the Weddingbee community? Please email us at ask@weddingbee.com with your question!
About Open Question

Open Question: Exploding Guestlist

June 29th, 2007 @ 2:11 pm by Open Question

Dear Weddingbee:

Our wedding date is August 11th.  We originally wanted a wedding with only 100 guests and picked our site based on that number.  We thought that we could easily invite 120 guests and expect 20% or so not to show; unfortunately, as things tend to go, my mother added immediate family members from her side of the family that she conveniently did not say we needed to invite but who were obviously offended, my fiance’s mother added a friend, etc. until our guestlist expanded to 148 guests (including ourselves, the photographer, and his assistant).  I am not narcissistic enough to think that everyone is coming because of us–unfortunately, we’re in the SF Bay Area, where people have relatives and like to make a trip of for personal reasons; many of my parents’ friends who we thought would not make it are coming.

I’ve been getting an early start on the headcount because of course, people state they are bringing guests when “& Guest” was NOT even on their invitation and then there are other cousins we didn’t invite trying to invite themselves to our wedding; I’ve told them no but stated that I have a waitlist open.

So far, we already have 94 yeses (and this is with about 110 out of town guests on our guestlist), 13 no’s, and 41 who have not yet responded.  We have a reception site limit of 125 seated guests, and I’m really worried that we’re going to go over. Eek, is there anything I can do?

Signed,
Exploding guestlist

7 Responses to “Open Question: Exploding Guestlist”

1.
Iris says:

1) Does the hall have a maximum? If so, this is a fire code issue, so can’t really stretch it.

2) Can you ask family who added on to their lists to chip in? Esp if they did so without permission.

3) People who invite a guest w/o being invited to do so could be told “Sorry, but the hall has a maximum; if enough people RSVP “no” we might know last minute there’s room for your date, but no promises.”

6/29/07 at 2:24 pm (reply)
2.
Jean says:

Can you start calling the “no responses” to see if they are coming or not so that you can better manage your list and waitlist?

6/29/07 at 2:48 pm (reply)
3.
jg says:

is there another room that you can rent out? i had to go this route even though the extra room wasn’t part of the main reception area but connected with a door… all the people in that extra room knew each other so they had a good time catching up and didnt miss too much of the wedding reception. they were all my parent’s friends who i didn’t know too well but HAD to be invited. i also had a maximum capacity that couldnt accomodate the last minute guests. it worked out well for me since this group of guests were also the big $$ givers.

6/29/07 at 2:54 pm (reply)
4.
LS says:

Agree that you definitely need to put your foot down with the people who added the “and guests” without being invited. Even if they’ve already RSVP’d yes, it is perfectly ok for you to call them up and explain nicely that there is a limit to the number of people who are permitted in the building, and you have reached it, so you apologize, but they cannot bring a guest.

I think the waitlist is fine - just say if we have extra room I’ll let you know, but as is, it is against city codes to have more than x people in the building, sorry, it’s out of your hands.

Good luck, that sounds sucky.

6/29/07 at 3:15 pm (reply)
5.
starjas says:

The maximum is the maximum. My cousin was telling me how he read that his venue had to get shut down by fire for having too many people one night. It was a wedding reception too. You don’t want that.

I’d make a point of how there are codes and unfortunately, their “and guest” can’t go.

In my case, my fiance was calling his friends who were adding the extra “& guest” person and telling him that the site was limited and unfortunately it that extra visitor couldn’t go and it was unfair to the other people who didn’t bring their ‘guest’ but wanted to do so and hoped he understood.

6/29/07 at 3:29 pm (reply)
6.
Jessica says:

On the positive side, I’ve heard that most of the last minute responses tend to be more “no” then “yes”. If people no for sure they are coming, they tend to reply right away, while the people that are on the fence wait to see if anything changes. You probably will still be able to get under the 125 mark…

6/29/07 at 5:57 pm (reply)
7.
n says:

Thanks for your responses! I was away for the weekend, so I only now got to read them. I think we may be okay…we only need about 4 more no’s now to be safe. Jessica is right that most of the last minute responses are no’s because people end up buying their plane tickets too late.

7/2/07 at 2:15 pm (reply)


You can also just...