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As promised, I wanted to report our final guest list statistics. I’ve always found these kind of posts helpful, even if just for finding some peace of mind while planning your list.
You might recall, I mentioned that our final guest list was 297. Yeah, well, that was before the week that I like to call “Guest List Goes Wild Week”.
Apparently, since we were a few (THREE) people under capacity and feeling really laid back about it, everyone - my parents, Burger’s parents, and Burger and I - padded their lists a little bit. That padding bumped our overall guest list from 297 to 321. THREE HUNDRED TWENTY ONE.
Enter Cheeseburger meltdown.
After some frantic phone calls, a few tears, and a mild panic attack, the six of us were attempting to cut our lists down.
The majority of the problem was my fault. You see, I included Burger’s brother & sister and their dates as part of Burger’s Family’s list and my brother & sister and their dates as part of my parents’ list - and our parents included them in ours because our siblings are in the bridal party. Whoops. It might not sound like a lot, but 9 people is almost half of the unaccounted for additions to the original 297! I felt terrible.
After a few days of meticulous cuts, we had our final number. 306. Only six people over. I could live with that (nervously… very nervously).
Only a week after the invitations were mailed, the responses started pouring in! It was certainly an exciting time. Every yes we received was wonderful. And there were a lot of them! In the first two weeks we had 120 accepting and only 15 regrets. But each regret was bittersweet. We certainly wanted everyone that we invited to attend, but at the same time we wanted our guests to be comfortable in the room.
More time passed, and we finally reached our RSVP deadline. We had 50 outstanding RSVPs, and we waited until 3 days after the deadline to start the dreaded phone calls. It wasn’t fun, and some people proved very difficult to get a hold of, but we eventually heard from everyone.
The final numbers?
Total Guests Invited: 306
Number Attending: 228
% Attending: 75%
So, for a wedding where all but 4 guests have to travel 3-5 hours, we have only a 25% regret rate! We are thrilled that we have a significant portion of our invited guests attending while simultaneously fitting in the ballroom comfortably!
What are your final guest list stats?
Yikes! Excellent recap. I’m kind of stressy over the who’s coming/who’s not/who’ll fit in the venue (we invited 188 and the venue holds 200 kind-of comfortably). Ack!
Looks like 75% is the norm acceptance rate! Good to know (we’re currently at 328 and counting!) Thanks!
That’s so heart-warming to know that so many people want to travel to be with you on your special day!
I have a post just like this. I have 100 people who haven’t RSVP’ed. We’re less than a week from our deadline. 
We invited 108 and have recieved 65 yes and 6 nos so far. The deadline is April 1, 2010 and i feel like we will be getting more no’s soon!
We invited 100 (exactly) and have 68 accepting. So 68%. I was hoping to stay under 75, so I’m quite pleased!
I’m glad that it worked out so perfectly. Thanks for posting - numbers like this are so helpful for planning!
oh miss cheeseburger, your post could not have come at a better time! we’re in that same boat right now - the guest list is slightly larger than what our venue capacity is (and slightly may or may not be an understatement, lol). fire code capacity = 340. guest list = 368. doh! just like you and mr. burger, we would love for every single person to make it, but i also wouldn’t mind receiving a few “no’s” for the sake of everybody there being comfortable and not having security turn people away because we’ve hit capacity. that would be terrrrible and i think i would die if people were denied entrance! “/ thanks so much for writing this post - it definitely is comforting and puts me a little more at ease! 
My obnoxiously mathematical fiance (love him!) insists that I ask you if there were people in there that you were not expecting to come at all. We have about 40 on our guest list who likely can’t come, so we’re hoping it will be 75% of the “likely to attend” list that end up joining us (for size purposes!). Any thoughts on this from you or the other bees here?
I’m seriously banking on at least a 20% “no” response rate, not for space but for budget reasons!!! We’ll see, invites are going out in a week and the RSVP date isn’t until May, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed…
@Miss Taco: fingers crossed for you, taco!
@future.mrs.v: yay! I will cross my fingers that everything works out ok!
@Amy: honestly, we had truly NO idea who would or wouldn’t come when we invited people. During high anxiety times, Burger and I sat down and did a “people who we *THINK* won’t come” list, and we came up with 15. We were right about those 17… and there were lots more!
@Miss Trail Mix: fingers crossed for you too, love!
ALSO A HUGE PS: Since writing this post (WHICH WAS WRITTEN ONLY 2 DAYS AGO!!!) 6 people have cancelled. Just keep this in mind when you’re planning - apparently it’s normal for people to cancel last minute (how polite!) and just not show up in general (even more polite!)… just an FYI
I hate having to track down people and I hope that’s not the case. We’ve sent out 77 invitations (which totals about 110 guests, give or take). So far, we have 12 guests going and 2 not. I decided to have a long rsvp period since I was having the deadline five weeks out, for catering and B-planning. I’m hoping once the calendar goes to April, more folks will send in their invites, and that the majority are on the yes side. 
The posts confirm is… I’m the average bride. Thank you all for the information. We are meeting to order invitations tonight. We have 119 adults / 10 kids on the invite list - with a 100 max venue. Hoping for exactly 100. hahahaa, not to be greedy, but we have a minimum spend so 100 would break us even for costs. I will report our stats back as soon as I can. I CAN’T WAIT.
miss cheeseburger - thanks! with a 75% acceptance rate, inviting all 370 (i left two people out earlier, oops!) would put us at ~280 people. i could live with that. lol.
Our stats were 330 invited and about 220 RSVP’d yes so we ended up at 67% acceptance. However we did invite people we knew wouldnt be able to make it out of courtesy so our ending result was probably closer to you at around 75%.
Basing SOLELY on responses to our STDs (which are pretty solid, since many have made hotel & airline reservations already), only 2 of our 60 (+ 8 babies) guests have replied “no”, 2 have let us know of something that may keep them from coming, & 2 have not responded in anyway - total unknown if they’re coming or not. So, that’s around 80-90% “yes” rate! But your last minute cancels scare me. With so many babies, if any one of them gets sick, the parents won’t come or others will stay away…hoping for VERY healthy babies this June!
oohhh, i’m right there with you guys - we have a guest list of 332!!!! *this is me on meltdown status*…
[...] Our Guest List: A Follow-Up | Weddingbee [...]
Thanks for the stats, it is so helpful in trying to figure out exactly how many people we can/will invite. I am not excited about the possibility of people canceling last minute. How rude!
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Mrs. Cheeseburger, Baltimore, MD/State College, PA Age and Occupation: 25, Medical Student Fiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Medical Student Engagement Date: June 28, 2008 Wedding Date: March 2010 Venue: Catholic Church Ceremony & Hotel Reception About Me: I'm a passionate girl from Pittsburgh, currently living in Baltimore for school, who loves Penn State, seeing movies, football, thunderstorms, black and white photos, Christmas, good beer, my amazing friends and family, and of course, my mister! We met, fell in love, got engaged, and will be married at our alma mater (go lions!) in a traditional Catholic ceremony followed by a hotel reception with lots of DIY details. It means so much to have our families and friends meet at our favorite place on earth to celebrate our love for one another - I truly couldn't ask for anything more!
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