Weddingbee Blog

You know those little sponge pills that you stick in a cup of water and they expand to be a huge dinosaur?

That doesn’t really look like a dinosaur. Regardless. You get the idea. (Image via Alibaba.com)

That? Has happened to our guest list.

I thought it could never happen to us. Not me, no way, no how. I’m a loser, I don’t know that many people, I have a small family. If anything, we’d hit well under the 100-person mark that we have been basing cost points off of.

Well, obviously, that happened. A first review of the list brought to attention the fact that we left off some very key people…like one of my best friends from college. (I mean, really, how did I forget him?) A second look made us realize that we should probably ask our parents if they wanted/needed anybody on that list, with the caveat that—since we’re paying for it, not them—we may or may not be able to invite everyone (even though it looks like we ultimately will be).

It’s kind of hard to say no to your parents, paying or not. A lot of the family add-ons came from Foxy’s mom and her side of the family. She remains close with said family, but Foxy has only met them a handful of times and doesn’t know them all that well; I’ve met them once. We figured we would of course invite them, but most ultimately wouldn’t attend due to distance, not liking to travel, etc.

Foxy’s mom seems to think otherwise—since a big birthday and family reunion of sorts this past May, it is seeming more likely that a lot of them will want to come. A lot meaning 20ish. Which, for a goal of a 100-person wedding? Is a lot.

A third look at the list made me realize I was missing a lot of family friends and people important to my mom and dad that I also know fairly well. So they were added.

A fourth look had us add more recent friends and other older friends that we simply forgot to add on the first time.

Right now, our list tops off at around 170 invited guests, but that doesn’t include the 10 or so children that may be in attendance as well. Taking out the people who we think will be obvious “nos,” we’re left at about 130, not including children. I will admit that we are allowing everyone a plus-one, which we don’t technically need to do, but mostly everyone has a plus-one anyway (as in, long time SO or husband/wife). We’ve kept in mind that the high end of our budget could cover about 110–115 people—still significantly less than the possible 130–140.

I know they say (they being the wedding gods, I think) that there’s a 10–20% “no” rate for the RSVPs. They also say that you’ll be surprised who actually ends up coming or not coming. (We’ve actually already gotten some of this.) My thinking is that, by sending out the save the dates soon, we may get a better gauge of who may not be able to attend, which will allow us to readjust our list and expectations a bit.

It’s kind of funny, because I never in a million years thought we’d have a B-list of people to invite. Geez, I’m so popular.

Totally kidding!!

Have you encountered a rapid growth spurt with your guest list at any point? How did you handle your awesome popularity?