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With our répondez s’il vous plaît date come and gone and most of our delinquent responders harassed into giving us a “yes” or “no” answer, it’s time to sit down and look at our guests list statistics.
I figured this would be helpful to all you readers out there sweating bullets about inviting more guests than your venue can hold or who are wondering who in the hell will show up, so here’s my number-by-number breakdown:
Guests Invited: 235
“Yes” RSVPs: 175
“No” RSVPs: 35
Missing In Action RSVPs: More than 25 (Some of those guests have not sent in their response card but have let us know either by email or phone call that they are or are not attending.)
I know this is a common complaint but seriously, people, how difficult is it to send the response card back?!?!
The envelope is even addressed and stamped for you. ALL you have to do is write your name and check a box. Now, if any of you MIA responders are reading this (yes, I’m talking to YOU, bridesmaid JDubs), go find your response card and put it in the mail now. OK, end of rant.
Based on what I know of the people who have not RSVPed, I’m guessing we’ll come in right at about 185 guests, which is pretty much exactly what I figured. However, there were a few moments of panic during the first two weeks after we mailed out our invitations, when we had 119 “yes” and 5 “no’s,” making our acceptance rate a whopping 95%!
It does seem that the first wave of responses have been “yes”-heavy because luckily, we received many more “regrets” in the following two weeks. Phew! I was having visions of a 215-person wedding and my parents being forced to live in a van down by the river after funding this shindig.
We have also had several people RSVP for themselves and a guest, even though the invitation did not read “and guest”. But I’m too much of a softie and a weenie to do anything about it. And truth be told, I do want everyone to be happy and comfortable at our wedding and if it means bringing a guest, so be it.
So there’s our response statistics in black and white. If you run the numbers, we had a 78% response rate, which is juuuuuust under the accepted average of 80%. I’m happy with the results, and luckily, there were almost no surprises, which I’m thankful about.
Are you worried about a higher or lower response rate than expected? What was/is your response rate?
I feel you on this — our RSVP deadline is quickly approaching and Mr. FF said to me ths morning: “How hard is it? Fill it out, send it back. Two seconds. It’s already stamped and addressed — they have no excuse!” 
Our numbers are almost identical to yours, but you’ve gotten more responses than we have (grr.) In their defense, the deadline is tomorrow…so I better be getting approximately 50 replies in the next 24 hours or heads are going to roll!
I check the mail like a hungry beast every day at 4, and lately have been “grr” at the lack of rsvps we’ve been getting lately. We were getting a good 3/day, and it’s been pretty empty since then. There are about half of ours outstanding, and some from like big family members and bridal party! WTF GUYS.
Is your wedding a destination wedding for most of your guests? I think knowing that would definitely help me figure out if our numbers will be similar. Thanks!
@sunnydebs: Good call, I meant to write that, about 80% of our guests are coming from OOT, most from NYC which is about 2 hrs away and a third from Miami (those RSVP’s have accounted for the bulk of our regrets!)
We can in at our low end, but I was disappointed at the number of “no” responses, given the feedback when the save-the-dates were sent out six months earlier. I was more than a bit peeved at the lack of courtesy to return cards. And in some instances, it took several emails and phone calls to get a response from people - entirely unacceptable. Certainly, some of those folks were on the more casual friend side (though not all), so based upon this we probably won’t go out of our way to invite them to future events calling for a firm committment. In all, most of the people I want to celebrate with will be in attendance, there were no add-on from invitees, so the stress of it all worked out…
We have 6 days left till our deadline and we’re only missing 5 cards. I’m pretty happy, though I think all of the stragglers will need phone calls!
glad it’s all working out! yes, people definitely wait on sending a “no”. i’m actually very guilty of that. bad pug!
how many weeks ahead of the wedding should you make your reply date on the RSVP cards? We are inviting about 40 more we can have, about 80%, so I hope my stats are the same!
Like sunnydebs my wedding is also destination — I am hoping for 50% - 75% regret responces due to the distance. I am not inviting children so i figure that will cut out those that figured the would make it a family vacation. Honestly Iwish I could afford to have everyone. Part of the reason we did a destination is that I could invite everyone and no hard feeling but I knew that many would not beable to attend and that took the guilt off of me having to pick and chose — its not like you can invite one cousin and not their sibling — right!! I have not sent the invites out yet — I really wanted to do 2 or three waves but my parents and my FI think that is tacky. Would love everyones comments and If any one else has stats on destination responces please post.
Sounds like great statistics - thanks for sharing this - it’s so helpful! Have you noticed any correlation between those who have sent ‘regrets’ and your closeness to them?? E.g. are the people who are unable to come the ones that you might expect, or are you getting a bunch of yes replies from the people who you thought might say no?
I was definitely surprised by the people that never responded or took a very long time, including my own mother. My FI’s grandfather basically told us he wouldn’t come as soon as he found out it would be a two hour drive. (He apparently can’t leave his eight dogs home alone for that long.) But, he didn’t RSVP. I’m presuming all the ones I’m missing are “no”s.
Ours were due yesterday and only got about 39% acceptance! :/ It’s semi destinational - since all relatives live out of town.
We’ve still got a week to go, and have gotten back a little under 60% of our responses. I too, am hoping we start getting some more no’s. Of the 36 or so cards we’ve gotten back, only two have been no’s so far. Yikes!
When our date came and went, we rang in still missing about 53 out of about 130 (I’d even been daring enough to cross off people I was very confident would not attend). We even had an RSVP online option, in addition to the mail-in option! SERIOUSLY.
@Rgeddy that sound good to me. The whole family and most of the friends are in NY with a travel time of 10 hours. My HS/College friends are in NC and their travel time is between 2 and 6 hours. So I am hopeful that we will be able to accommodate all that choose to make the trek with those stats.
I think that there are many guests who haven’t ever planned a wedding or something like it, so to us, the missing rsvp’s are a BIG FREAKING DEAL, and to them, it’s not at all. Nobody’s trying to be rude. I would agree about the initial responses all being yeses… when I get an invite, if I know I can make it I send it back right away, and if I’m not sure I hold on to it for a while.
We have had a 50% acceptance rate. I’m somewhat disappointed at the number of people who were originally planning to attend but our wedding is a destination for most of our guests (80% are >6hrs by car).
Ours was higher… like 90%! And that’s with a large out-of-town contingent. I’m glad I was tough at the end when peeps tried to tack on extra guests, or we’d be SOL.
However, once I know someone’s coming, I stop caring about whether or not I get the card. Like my fiance’s parents and the BMs/GMs… I mean, I know they’re a yes.
I haven’t sent out our invitations yet, but since our wedding is so small (70) and most everyone is in town, I expect everyone, save one or two, will RSVP “yes”. I will be curious how that 80% rule plays out with a small group.
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Mrs. Trail Mix, New York Age and Occupation: 26, PE Teacher Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, MBA Student Engagement Date: March 2009 Wedding Date: June 2010 Venue: Tannery Pond at the Darrow School About Me: I'm a country girl who somehow found herself living in the Big Apple and loving every minute of it. I'm planning a rustic, country-chic wedding in my hometown in upstate New York and it's going to be a Party with a capital P. White wine, flea markets and running keep me happy and my friends, family and fiance are my world. I'm a little bit crafty, a little bit crazy but mostly just crazy in love.
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