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Well, we’re officially less than three weeks out from our wedding and we just now have a final head count for our guest list. I swear, it’s like pulling teeth trying to get people to commit whether or not they’re coming—people can be so wishy-washy!
But, it’s over and done and I lived to tell the tale (I wasn’t sure I would for a while there!). I remember that when we were first making the guest list, I was really curious about general acceptance rates for our time of the year. Typically you hear between 50-75% acceptance, but that’s a pretty wide margin and is pretty much completely useless. Plus, I figured ours might be a bit different since our wedding is so close to the holidays! So, I’m here to share what our numbers ended up being, in hopes that it might help some of you out who are planning your guest list now!
Total guests invited: 154
Guests who weren’t actually invited but managed to worm their way into the final count anyways: 3
(note: I’m not including these three guests in the percentages since they technically weren’t originally included in our guest count)
Total “yes” RSVPs: 58
Total “no” RSVPs: 8
Number of guests we had to track down by phone: 88, or 57% (OMG! SERIOUSLY?!)
Total guests attending: 104, or 68%
I feel pretty good about the total we ended up with, since my original estimate of the number we’d have was 103. Not bad, right? I would say approximately 60-70% of our guests live more than two hours away from our venue, so it’s long-distance for most of them!
Annnd those are our stats! I’m still a little bitter about the fact that only 43% of our guests actually RSVPed, but I’m trying to let it go. It’s finished and it’s time to move on with my life… right on to the seating chart, which I have been likening to a jigsaw puzzle from HELL. Not a fun task.
Oh, the joys of planning a wedding! 
Did you have a lot of guests fail to RSVP?
ha! We invited 153, had 106 RSVP Yes and 104 attend (Yea, a couple just didn’t show). It was seriously the perfect amount of people. Good Luck!
This make me feel great and hope for the same luck. We are inviting 158 and we are hoping for around the 100 mark to show. about 75% of our guest list have to fly in though so maybe that will be another factor?
What a timely post, I just got down emailing and calling a bunch of ppl to track down RSVPs and I only have 2 weeks as of tm!
When your not in the wedding party I guess you have no idea how critical those 4 little letters are!
I understand why that upsets you. I would be seriously unhappy about having to track down 57% of guests. Hopefully ours will be more timely, though I figure we’ll have a lot of “oh we’ll be there” when we see people and it will be like no I need you to send back the card to be counted. =)
We’re inviting 154 and hoping for 100… so I hope that your numbers work for us too!
Also, I kind of want to hear the story of how 3 people weasled in…
i thank my lucky stars that our guests weren’t as bad as apparently most people are out there. i hear so often about a super high percentage of non-responsive guests like you had, lots of people responding yes but not showing up, people bringing extras, adding a +1 for themselves, bringing kids to an adult-only wedding, etc. what is wrong with everyone?? with all the weddings happening every day you’d think people would have a clue.
but i’m wondering why you’re letting those 3 extra people come? even tho the total guest count is where you want it and you probably have room for them, i’d let whoever is bringing them know that the extras aren’t invited just under principle alone. that’s so rude to add people! those extras equal dinners and bar tabs you have to pay for.
@Kemi82JP: I would LOVE to be able to tell those extra guests they can’t come, but unfortunately in the two situations that led to the extra guests, one of our mothers stepped in and told them they could come before we even knew about the situation. So in the end, Mr. Cardy and I didn’t have any say in it at all. In fact, two of the guests had already booked a room before we even knew they were coming, and were also insisting that they had sent in their RSVP (which is impossible since they didn’t even get one) so we couldn’t very well tell them they weren’t invited. It’s just one of those really crappy and frustrating situations!
Our wedding is right before yours and we also had a large percentage not RSVP! What a pain.
@Miss Cardigan: That does sound like a crappy situation on the extra guests!
I always like seeing RSVP numbers, and I have a feeling that we’ll be making several calls to non responsive guests as well. Ugh!
What a pain in the tush it must have been to track them all down! You must be so relieved to have a final count done though. I hope and pray that things go better for us when its time to send ours out/get them back.
How exciting is it that you are going to be a Mrs. is three weeks! 
That is ridiculous that so many people did not RSVP, so rude!!!
We invited 240 and ended up with 183, which was just under the 20% decline rule
omg, don’t even get me started on extra guests. we’ve had some of the oddest, most random, most uncomfortable situations you can imagine. like what you say? three different invited parties writing in +1, +2, and +3 on their rsvp cards (no, i’m not joking), distant relatives booking a room from our room block assuming they were invited (they weren’t!) and just hadn’t received their invite yet (yes, they made it onto the list after that incident), grandmothers crying over their siblings not getting invited (great aunts/uncles we haven’t seen in well over 2 years, if not longer), an aunt disowning me as her niece because her grown-man-out-of-control-likes-to-pick-fights-with-everybody son wasn’t invited (for obvious reason), spouses of family members asking if they can invite their parents (people we’ve never met before), people unsure of whether they’re coming or not - they’ll come if nothing else comes up (umm, thanks!). ugh. and i’m sure there are others that i couldn’t remember/chose to block from memory, lol.
here are what the numbers look like for us:
invited: 269 (including all the ones that shoved their way on, which was 15 people!)
shooting for: 220
rsvp yes: 192
rsvp no: 55
haven’t rsvp’d at all/haven’t decided yet: 22(!!!)
have i mentioned that our wedding is two weeks away… and the rsvp deadline was dec.1st!
is it bad that i’m secretly hoping that all of the 22 that haven’t responded yet aren’t coming? lol.
guest list & rsvp’s = greatest stressor by far
I had lame things like that happen. I didnt work out percentages and all but we had 156 invited. 3 people added themselves (found out certian people had plus ones and no longer had SO’s and decided to add themselves) which ultimatly was fine since 1 was my DH’s grandparents driver (they are both in their 90’s), 1 was someon I hadn’t seen in years but was SO happy she made it and she ended up arranging my flowers for me, and the last one was someone I never met but came with a dear friend who travelled from Alaska (9 hour flight) and travelled with them all week. We ended up at 120 with 4 no shows due to a family emergency. Had to track down the last 35 people after the RSVP date though. Most of those people whom are already married…. HELLO! You’d think THOSE people would have a clue about RSVP dates! Oh wel, all worked out in the end!!
Holy cow. That is a buttload of people you had to track down. All together now: HOW RUDE!
We got married the weekend after Thanksgiving and ran into the same problem. We had to track down 40% of our guests for their RSVPs. And the “fun” doesn’t stop there. You will find that several of the people will not show the day of the wedding. 10% of our guests bailed the day of. Would have been nice to know that BEFORE we paid the final bill We also had the same predicament of people worming their way into the final count and ironically, they were part of the 10% who bailed and never showed up. Also had the reverse of people who never RSVPed (even after pestering them), therefore we put them down as a “no,” and oh, surprise! They showed up the day of the wedding
Our percentage of people we had to track down was similar to yours. I really wasn’t surprised, honestly. In our case, at least it was a little easier because for the vast majority of guests, I was already aware of whether to expect them or not. Just a side effect of planning a small wedding over the course of a year+ (you hear people’s intentions some way or another). It was not easy, though, convincing my mom not to freak out and argue that we should only order enough food for the people who did send in their RSVP card. (Yeah, we would have ended up only being able to feed like 1/3 of the guests in attendance if we’d done that).
Wow. You had to track down a bunch of people. That’s not cool.
What upset me is some of the people who didn’t send back their RSVP’s were family! Cousins and aunts/uncles who knew about the wedding a year in advance. At least send back a no! It’s not hard. The dang envelope has the address and stamp already, just check a box!
I haven’t had to deal with this yet, but I’m super stressed about it, mostly because recently I’ve had TONS of people that didn’t get save the dates coming up to me and asking if they’re invited/when the wedding is. I’ve considered eliminating RSVP cards all together and doing a text/e-mail/website RSVP system instead, but I’m not sure how my guests would respond (or if they would at all). We’re having a small wedding with a slightly larger reception and are extremely familiar with everyone we invited. Opinions?
@Kinsey: I think an online RSVP system would work great, as long as your guests are tech-savvy enough to do it! That’s what Mr. Cardy and I would have done, but we have quite a few guests who don’t use the internet at all, so it wasn’t really practical for us. I think that with any approach, you’ll have people that won’t respond and you’ll have to track down. I’ve learned that’s probably just part of the deal. But you’ll make it though! Don’t stress too much!
I had the call ~ the same amount -ridiculous. It ALREADY has a stamp on it.
Can ya come?
If no:
If you have plans or don’t want to, check “no.”
If yes:
If you’re on the fence, MAKE our wedding your plans for that date, check “yes,” add us to your calendar, and
Finally: put the damn thing in the mail!
As if planning a wedding wasn’t enough work w/o making a ton of unnecessary calls!
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Mrs. Cardigan, Austin Age and Occupation: 21, Student/Soon-to-be Special Education Teacher Fiance's Age and Occupation: 20, Student/Soon-to-be Accounting Systems Analyst Engagement Date: August 16, 2009 Wedding Date: January 2011 Venue: Vintage Villas About Me: I'm a native Austinite who was raised as a die-hard Aggie. Luckily, I'm a pretty persuasive girl because I managed to convince my high school boyfriend (now fiance!), Mr. Cardigan, to ditch his hardcore Longhorn ways and join me up at A&M, where we currently reside with our adorable dogs, Cullen & Ranger. We're currently planning a bright, cheery wedding with a ridiculous amount of DIY projects that I can't wait to tackle! I love crafting in any form, reading, and margaritas (I think I love them the most!). Organization is what keeps me sane and I love helping others, which is probably why I ended up as an education major. It gets a little chaotic sometimes when you're planning a wedding among all of the papers, projects, finals, and certification exams, but we're having the time of our lives and we can't wait to get started on our journey as husband and wife - and we're so excited to share our wedding with the hive!
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