Destination weddings - what was your "invite yield"?

We had a DW in Mexico. Invited 110, and 18 people came. Which was awesome...we originally only thought 10 people would. We invited a lot of people out of respect, knowing that they weren't coming anyways. However a bunch of people said they would come and then went AWOL when it came time to book. So Faran hit it right on the mark.

When you guys say that people said they would come and then didn't... do you mean that they literally RSVP'ed "yes" and then were no-shows? Or do you mean they said verbally "Oh I'm so excited about your wedding, I'll definitely be there" and then ultimately RSVP'ed "no"?

B2Z where did you get married? Did you do a BAM post? Sorry I'm new to the board so I haven't seen any Mexico posts yet.

I got married at the Grand Palladium in Riviera Maya It was amazing. I haven't done a BAM because I didn't really post that much prior to actually getting married. I thought it'd be weird. haha

I had people in both categories. A lot of people didn't even bother to RSVP because it wasn't a "real wedding" (still trying to figure that one out) But we also had people RSVP and then AWOL.

Not a real wedding... what on earth could they have possibly meant by that?!

They felt excluded. I knew a lot of my family couldn't come(purposely planned this way, actually) and they took it badly. Sucks to be them!

Ah, that's hard. Have others experienced this (bad feelings from folks who couldn't make it)? How'd you handle it?

Here was my experience: we are having a dw in Punta Cana. We sent out invites to 244 people (so pretty close to your number) in June of last year... So far we have 68 people coming for sure... And another 30 who said maybe and would let us know closer to... I plan on following up with those people in the next few weeks and realistically expect half of them to come! We found immediate family all rsvpd yes and a lot of our friends took the opportunity for a vacation. People will surprise you though... Some people we thought would never come are coming. And some people we thought were a given rsvpd no. Hope that helped!

@Vanessa that's super helpful, thank you! So you have 68+15ish minus a few probable last-minute cancelations for an expected total of 80ish? Sounds lovely.

DW usually don't have large guest counts due to their cost for the guests and having to take time off work. I feel like you may be setting yourself up for disappointment if you are expecting 100 people to come to your DW. Just saying.

Truly appreciate the honest feedback, @Ren. I think I need to budget for at least 100 just in case, but if only 50 or 70 come, I'll be very happy. This thread is definitely helping me see that I don't need to be cutting way back on the invite list, which is a relief!

We are having a DW in Key West. Invited 87. Had about 60 say they were absolutely coming and ending up with 45 plus us I think. Like the others have said, it is so hard to gauge because everyone says they are excited about it and coming, but when it gets down yo the wire things happen and everyone can't follow through. We went into it with the idea that we knew it would be small and that we would be happy with whoever chose to share the time with us. I would just say to keep your expectations low. I personally would trim your guest list a bit as well. To me, DW are more about close family and friends. Are there that many people you are super close with? Just my two cents. I think it would be easier to plan and budget accordingly.

Thanks @Kerri!

Partly it's so large because I have a large family, and my parents want to include a lot of family friends (which is fine by me because these are folks I've been close to my whole life as well). Most of FH's family won't be able to make it, so he wants to invite a lot of friends in the hopes that some number of them show up.