Weddingbee Blog

I love RSVP breakdown posts! I’m a bit of a data nerd, so I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Mrs. Coyote, Mrs. Turkey, Mrs. Ladyfingers, Mrs. Ticket, and a whole bunch of bees before them.

To start with, our final original invite* count was 51 invited guests. We ended up giving out more plus-ones than we originally thought because we lost a few intended guests along the way.

Here’s how our invites broke down:

Mr. D had more invites going out to his peeps, with 28 groom’s guests and 17 bride’s guests invited.

The location breakdown was kind of weird because if I chose to do in-town vs. out-of-town, it’d be two locals (my mom and her invited plus-one) versus 49 other guests, which isn’t really helpful information.

So, local-ish is the category for guests from the Brockville/Kingston/Ottawa area. Regional-ish covers the Orangeville/Peterborough area guests, who are within a five-hour range. Northern Ontario and Out of Province are pretty self-explanatory. In the end, we invited 32 people within a five-hour drive and 19 people from afar.

So how did it work out? Well, first things first:

Booooo. Twenty-seven people didn’t get us the card back by the cut-off date, more than half of our guests.

Except it looks way worse than it is—I set our RSVP date for September 1st, which landed in the middle of a holiday weekend. If people sent their cards on or just before the 1st, it’d obviously take awhile to get here. We actually got two cards on the first mail day after our cut-off!

A bunch of people who didn’t get their cards out on time (or at all, possibly…) let us know by phone/email/Facebook/carrier pigeon. I put out one “let us know or you don’t get a chair” warning shot, and we had all but two people (plus allotted plus-ones) accounted for by September 4th.

We ended up with this:

33 people said YES

17 people said NO (or didn’t say anything, so they’re an assumed no)

(The ? is because I’m not sure if my mom is bringing a date—but she’s in charge of finalizing our rentals/linens so it doesn’t matter to me!)

To break it down, bride vs. groom:

10 bride’s family said YES

1 bride’s family said NO (an unused plus-one)

3 bride’s friends said YES

3 bride’s friends said NO

12 groom’s family said YES

6 groom’s family said NO

7 groom’s friends said YES

3 groom’s friends said NO

0 mutual guests said YES

5 mutual guests said NO

Location-wise?

11 local guests said YES

1 local guests said NO (unused plus-one)

15 regional guests said YES

4 regional guests said NO

6 Northern Ontario guests said YES

5 Northern Ontario guests said NO (all mutual friends)

0 Out of province guests said YES

8 Out of province guests said NO

*Now, if you recall, we invited a few guests after the RSVPs came in—just casually, over the phone or by email, because they’re the types of people who wouldn’t really care about stuff like that. We’re trying to firm up who is coming and who isn’t, so our number could possibly go up in the next few weeks. Most people are saying no, though, which I sort of expected due to lack of notice.

So, not counting mystery bonus guests but including ourselves, and our photographer, we have 36 guests for the Dragon wedding! (Possibly one more if my mom brings a date. ) I can’t see it going past 40-ish, even if bonus peeps say yes.

Extra trivia, as if this post isn’t long enough already?

• only one person used their generic plus-one option
• there are two people whose attendance is an utter mystery (and they’re supposed to be a part of the wedding party…)
• we definitely overstocked booze, favours, program paper and centerpieces
• we ended up with less people than we thought (there are about four or five “Nos” that we really thought would be a YES)
• I, for one, am cool with having less guests—it means less stress, more food for everyone and cheaper rentals
• We’re groom’sside heavy, but a lot of the extras on Mr. Dragon’s side include family members of his that could also count as my friends, so in the end, it’s a good mix from both sides.’
• Between us, eight wedding party members, two flower girls, and Mr. D’s dad acting as our officiant, over 1/3 of the guest list will be standing up at the front during the ceremony.

Phew!

How did your RSVP stats stack up?