The Breakdown.

The Breakdown.

May 17th, 2011 @ 5:07 pm by Mrs. Jaguar
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… and no, not a mental one. (Yet.)

I’m talking about our RSVP breakdown. We’ve chased, we’ve hounded, we’ve extended our response deadline by two weeks and we’re officially done now.

Let me preface this by admitting that we initially wanted a smaller wedding, preferably with 30-40 people, max. Unfortunately, our decision to hold the wedding here in Sydney meant that we had a huge amount of family to invite—so our numbers skyrocketed from there. As for those numbers:

Guests invited: 129
Guests who RSVPed ‘NO’: 37
Guests who mysteriously disappeared & we can’t get in contact with: 2
Guests who RSVPed ‘YES’: 90
Vendors in our number count: 5

Total? 90 guests. (Or 95, if you include our vendors that we’re feeding.)

I’ll be honest:

after finally accepting the fact that we were going to have larger numbers, I was really disappointed to get that many ‘no’ responses. We had even booked a room at our reception venue with a minimum of 80 guests because we knew we’d be able to fit them in, and for a while there, I was seriously scared we wouldn’t even hit that number.

A lot of the ‘no’ guests were ones that we expected to be there—family on both my side as well as Mr. Jaguar’s side. Considering that we sent out our save the date cards really early (as in, a good six months before the wedding) and had only one couple let us know that they’d already had plans and couldn’t make it, we assumed a lot would be there. Sadly, to assume just makes an ass out of u and me… or at least just ended up with us feeling a little neglected. It had our parents a bit upset too; they aren’t impressed that direct family aren’t making the effort to come to our wedding, after all of the other ones we’ve attended in the past.

Bygones. It’ll be definitely interesting to see if any of those 39 people bother to send us a card and wish us well, especially considering that most of them simply ticked a ‘no’ box and sent our response card to us with nary a personal message in sight. Sigh. I’m focusing on the fact that we’ll be surrounded by 90 people who actually want to be there on our wedding day. That’s the most important thing!

Next comes seating arrangements, and judging from the chaos that came from our little jam session last night, it’s going to be a whole new level of crazy.

The Breakdown. : wedding rsvp sydney Tablechaos tablechaos

How did your final RSVP numbers turn out? Did you have any surprise ‘yes’ or ‘no’ responses?

Tags: rsvp, sydney |

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29 Responses to “The Breakdown.”

1 2 Last

Bee

Miss Snow Cone (message) 1,026 posts, Bumble bee

I bet you won’t spend a single second thinking of those 37 on the big day!

5/17/11 @ 5:11 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Candy Apple (message) 1,465 posts, Bumble bee

So…. before I got sucked into the wedding madness, I was always one of “those people” that just ticked the box on RSVP cards and returned them!! Now I totally understand that it’s so nice to write a personal note as well, but honestly, I didn’t know before

I bet lots of the ‘no’ people will send a card or gift, too.

Anyway, sorry you were disappointed with the overall count, but yes, just keep in mind that you will have lots of people who love and support you there for the big day!!

5/17/11 @ 5:13 pm (reply)

Member

lisamarieloves (message) 446 posts, Helper bee

I wanted a small wedding also, but am inviting close to 125 people. Its hard to imagine that any one of those people will not be coming. But I think its the general rule that a certain percentage of all wedding invitees doesn’t make it. But how could they possibly miss it!? =) I agree with Miss Snow Cone - you won’t even think about it during your wedding! Plus side - less people to feed!

5/17/11 @ 5:15 pm (reply)

Member

KCheer (message) 370 posts, Helper bee

I agree, you won’t have time to think about the “no” people on your wedding day - you will be having too much fun! My wedding count was 150 and honestly, it was really hard getting around to talk to everyone! I think that about 100 guests sounds perfect!!

5/17/11 @ 5:18 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Prairie Dog (message) 400 posts, Helper bee

i had about a dozen pieces of paper with table drawings just like that! figuring out seating was a total nightmare. i seriously started thinking it would NEVER work out and very melodramatically screamed, I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE and went to bed. pdog took a stab, then i took another stab, and somehow it got done!

i’ll be honest, i cried over two ‘no’ rsvps (my cousins) but now i’m just like…hey, that would be two more people to work into seating…

5/17/11 @ 5:21 pm (reply)

Member

Caribee (message) 36 posts, Newbee

We’re at 36 “no” responses, and I understand your disappointment. But on the bright side, at least all of yours have responded to your hounding…sigh…

5/17/11 @ 5:23 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Gazelle (message) 994 posts, Busy bee

Our guest have a week and a half to get the RSVPs back and we are only about half way there. I really hope we get a ton flooding our mailbox this week.

Funny RSVP story - we sent invites out to two of Mr. G’s friends who share a house. One of them grabbed the wrong RSVP card, didn’t fill their name out and mailed it back to us. So the black light failed because we attributed a no to the wrong person.

I’m sorry that so many people said no. How frustrating! And seriously, you shouldn’t have to chase for those answers. I’m sure your wedding will be lovely with all of the people that truly want to be there to celebrate with you!

5/17/11 @ 5:26 pm (reply)

Member

SkansoniaBride (message) 19 posts, Newbee

We are getting married half the country away from most of our family, so we expected a lot of “no”s, but there were still some that shocked us. My dad is really close to his four brothers and we were sure they would all come because they are pretty well off and my dad would never miss one of their kids weddings. Three of the four ended up RSVPing no. It really hurt my dad’s feelings. I was sad about it too, but whenever I think about it I remember that my 92 year old grandma is flying from Cincinnati to Seattle (4.5 hour flight)! Her coming that far makes up for any other “no”s from my family. My advice is to think about the “yes”s

5/17/11 @ 5:38 pm (reply)

Member

SkansoniaBride (message) 19 posts, Newbee

5/17/11 @ 5:38 pm (reply)

10.

Bee

Mrs. Tartlet (message) 3,207 posts, Sugar bee

Those 39 people are missing out on a great party! I’m sorry you had those disappointments, and I hope you hear from them soon!

5/17/11 @ 6:43 pm (reply)

11.

Member

peggyl (message) 119 posts, Blushing bee

hey Miss.J

i hear ya.

I have a destination wedding that im planning, and though i know numbers are going to be small, i was surprise (and quite upset) that some of the “Really close” family will not be able to attend - and not for financial reasons either.

I had a hard time accepting it, because similar to you, my family attended to their related weddings.

It was actually harder for my folks, who believed my relatives would definitely be there, and especially my pops who was all excited to see his siblings. My heart broke as I watched pops plan all these outtings for his siblings, and the next minute how his face fell when he found out they werent coming.

but here’s how i see it… the people who are coming are the ones who WANT to come. be there to celebrate WITH you.

and at the end of the day, thats what matters most!

5/17/11 @ 7:00 pm (reply)

12.

Bee

Mrs. Elephant (message) 6,182 posts, Bee Keeper

Your wedding is going to be awesome and you’ll be too busy having fun to think of those people that can’t make it!

5/17/11 @ 7:15 pm (reply)

13.

Guest

Kate

Hey Miss Jaguar,
Just wanted to say that my heart totally goes out to you with all the issues you’ve had with RSVPS. I got married in August 2009, and had a somewhat similar situation, with getting married back ‘home’ after spending time in London. I met my husband there, and we got married back in Canada. There were so many people we were sure were coming, and our heart broke at the time when the no’s started to come in… and we also had to chase a lot of the no’s.
To put it plainly, it just sucked. So many of the No’s were for people that we would never, ever have missed their wedding… and some were indeed for people that we had spent thousands of $ flying to their wedding in the year or two prior, only for them to not come to ours. I just really thought, and still do, that weddings and the like are some of the moments that define our lives. And if you love someone, friend or family, you should be there for those moments, unless there’s some real hardship getting in the way.
If it helps, on the day of, I didn’t think of those that weren’t there. (Sure, you do still afterwards, but never in the moment.)
Best of luck to you!

5/17/11 @ 7:31 pm (reply)

14.

Guest

Glowing Bride

Hi Miss Jaguar!
I totally hear you… I felt the same way at our No’s. Disappointed for no apparent reason. Here is a blogpost I wrote about handling RSVP drama. I sure hope it makes you feel better somehow
http://www.herecomestheblog.com/2011/03/17/rsvp-drama-how-to-handle-it-gracefully/

5/17/11 @ 7:35 pm (reply)

15.

Member

mrsawesome09 (message) 523 posts, Busy bee

I could have written this post for you! Though we ended up having around 125 guests, we invited over 200! Most of FI’s cousins/aunts/uncles aren’t coming, and it sucks. Though, they’re from out of state, we expected them to come!

5/17/11 @ 7:42 pm (reply)

16.

Bee

Miss Balloons (message) 132 posts, Blushing bee

like Peggyl, even though my destination wedding is very small, Mr. B & I were shocked at a few of the very close people that backed out. I think weddings really are a time where “you find out who your friends are…” I’m hoping to send out my at-home reception invites by the end of the week & I’m anxious about how the rsvps will turn out. On the bright side 90 is still a large number of people who are going to be there to support you on your big day!

5/17/11 @ 8:06 pm (reply)

17.

Guest

Tracie

We are experiencing the same thing. We invited 238 and we ended with about 150. Sadly a lot of the people who can’t come are ones we will really miss being there, but life happens and things come up.

5/17/11 @ 8:20 pm (reply)

18.

Member

Ramble10 (message) 18 posts, Newbee

I invited 160 and ended up with 149!! That’s still pretty high for me but unfortunately we both have VERY large families so I sort of anticipated a larger wedding.

What I did for seating plan (we JUST did this last night haha) was print every couple and single guest on pieces of paper and then initially grouped them into big groups (ie. friends, immediate family, extended family, parents friends etc) then we tackled each big group trying to put them into smaller groups. That helped us put together tables and figure out where the random people were and how to fit them in.

It was actually the one job that Haze loved to do and really wanted to take it on himself!! It went a LOT smoother than I could have ever imagined hope that helps!!

5/17/11 @ 10:11 pm (reply)

19.

Member

licelot13 (message) 94 posts, Worker bee

i believe out all my guest (forgot the count) about 10 are no’s. which kind of upset me, becuase we are having a buffet style, they can cook for 75 or 100, so we are doing 100…. now i’m going to have empty chairs which i hate to have. so i will take one take out!

5/17/11 @ 10:49 pm (reply)

20.