Weddingbee Blog

So, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this or not, but we’re getting married this Saturday. Holy crap, you guys.

Now that we’ve established that…

Let’s take a look at the RSVP breakdown!

The guest list for this wedding was MASSIVE. Originally, Mr. Potion and I had imagined inviting 100, maaaaybe 150 people, with about 50 people actually showing up because of the rather inconvenient location (Middle-of-Nowhere, Alabama, though it’s Middle-of-Somewhere to us).

And then the church told us that, technically, they could sit 300 people.

And then my mom checked out reception venues, and the winner told her they could accommodate 200, or maybe even 250 people—or, if we utilized the outside space, as many as we want!

This is a dangerous thing to promise someone like my mom.

Photo taken by Mr. Potion at The Most Awesome Bridal Shower Ever

See, my mom is one of the sweetest, most loving people in the entire world, and family is very important to her (so therefore family is very important to me, too). Since it seemed there was no limit to how large our guest list should be, she wanted to make sure to invite EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD who is in any small way related to me, even if we haven’t seen or spoken to them since I was an infant.

Perhaps this is a trait common to all moms, as Mr. Potion’s mom did the same.

How many people do you think we ended up inviting?

Go ahead, guess.

If you guessed a whopping 278 people, you would be correct!

When I was addressing the envelopes, I wanted to make sure I had spelled everyone’s name correctly and that we were 100% sure the addresses were right. A few times, I’d come upon an odd-looking name or an address that just didn’t quite seem complete, so I’d ask Mr. Potion if he knew whether or not it was spelled right, assuming the guest in question was from his side.

“How should I know? I don’t know who that is.”

Yeah, that exchange happened more than once.

Usually we were able to figure out what side the guest came from (not that it mattered for invitations, we just wanted to know) based on the state they lived in, but in some cases we had to call up our moms to double check. We think we finally were able to establish which of us is related to all the strangers on the guest list, and were therefore able to compile the following pretty charts!

Out of the 278 invited guests, 70 RSVP’ed yes. Many of the 208 “nah…”s are actually just presumed “nah…”s, as we were never able to track down a definitive answer for many people. (The number we gave the caterer is nicely padded juuuuust in case we get some unexpected arrivals.) I wouldn’t say my online RSVP experiment failed—we sent out 127 invitations, and 62 parties used the website to RSVP, whereas a handful called in their response—I’d just say that it’s not a foolproof way to ensure that everyone sends in a response. I’m convinced that, no matter how convenient you make it, some people are just too lazy to tell you that they’re not coming—they just assume that you’ll just assume that they don’t want to show up.

Anyway.

The invites themselves were nearly evenly distributed between the two of us—168 people on my side, 110 on his. I have a really, really big extended family, and, like I said, EVERYONE had to be invited.

Out of the 70 people who RSVP’ed yes, however, a large majority are from my side. I suppose this has to do with the fact that most of my family lives in the state of Alabama (or very near it) but, honestly, we both expected more of Mr. Potion’s friends and family to make the journey for The Big Day. While we’ve said from the beginning we’d rather have a small wedding, and while we know that fewer guests means we’ll have time to really interact meaningfully with everyone that day, it was still a little heartbreaking to watch the “nos” trickle in from his side.

This bride’s side/groom’s side breakdown could make for one very lopsided church…so we’re just going to ignore the concept of “sides” and ask people to sit wherever they want.

That’s right, folks, it’s time for another sign! (This is probably the last one.)

{personal photo}

This sign will be on display at the front of the church next to the basket of programs. Aside from our immediate family members and the bridal party, the ushers will be instructed to seat people so that the church fills up evenly, without asking “bride’s side or groom’s side?”

What percentage of your invited guests actually RSVP’ed? Was your guest list evenly distributed between the two of you, or did either one invite significantly more people than the other? Are you having your guests sit on “their side”?

*all graphs created in Google Docs*