How many guests Rsvp'ed "no" to your wedding?

Plan on everyone coming. We've had a good amount of guests already tell us they have conflicts, and we're keeping that in the back of our minds, but I don't expect too many no's from those who haven't already said something. If you can come up with 10 people to cut, you would really be helping yourself.

Fire your DOC. Telling you that 20% will decline is ridiculous. We had 2, yes 2, guests decline out of 180. I know we had a really low decline rate, but for any supposed professional wedding planner to tell you 20% is unprofessional. You need to plan on a 100% accept rate. That's why you don't over invite.

View Quoted Comment My director also said something similar. She said 10% tend not to come. I am still budgeting for all to show up so we are prepared.

It's impossible to predict how many guests will RSVP yes and no. It can vary a lot. Out of 165, we had 75 guests RSVP that they would come. More than half couldn't make it.

Other people have 100% attendance or pretty close it it.

In any event, you need to be prepared for 100% attendance. If you invite, say 200 people, you need to be able to host all 200 if they all want to come.

One thing that really helped me out was remembering that my venue priced out kids under 19 and kids under 12 differently. I was stressing about numbers before sending things out but then realised when I took those into account I didn't need to cut anyone!!

Check with your venue, especially if you have a bar package, what the price is for underage teenagers and for kids, if you have any invited.

Final few days to get all RSVP’s in. I have only had 5 out of 62 decline.

Yeah you should really plan on everyone coming. Twenty percent is not realistic for a local wedding. As far as cutting the guest list, I am not sure who gave you the idea that if you cut one cousin, you have to cut them all. If that is what you want to do, I get it, but I am not inviting some of my cousins that I am not close with.

I wouldn't send STD's to anyone but the must haves. Once you do that you HAVE to invite them, and you really will be stuck. It would be different if say, it was a little more than you planned to spend but you could come up with a few hundred extra bucks to cover the catering. But if your venue literally will not hold that many people (it's probably to do with their fire code!) what are you going to do? Turn them away at the door?

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Thanks for the advice! It's my personal preference. I have a lot of first cousins, some of which I'm closer with than others, but I don't feel comfortable inviting a few and not inviting others, especially since a lot of them are siblings.

We are anticipating that 20% will decline given that it is a popular weekend for weddings, graduations, and proms and that over 90% of our guest will have to travel over 2 hours, a lot with more significant travel of over 5 hours or a flight. So people will have to get a hotel room and plan a trip around it. If we do end up with more accepting than that, the venue has the room and we can pay for it. Still, if it would not be possible to accommodate every guest invited then you should consider cutting down to whatever that absolute max is.

162 invited, 128 yes RSVPs. 12/24 of the no RSVPs were single guests that came but opted not to bring a date. Several of the remaining declines were single guests that had also gotten plus ones so it’s possible they wouldn’t have brought someone even if they had attended.

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That's what I was thinking- don't send STDs to some of the more extended guests. Our venue will hold up to 200 people and we're under that for our guest count, so it's not a safety issue. It's more of a logistical issue because it leaves less room between tables, the bar, makes for a smaller dance floor. I just would prefer it not be as cramped.

I may not be a ton of help but we invited 100, our deadline is this weekend and we’ve only had 3 declines. We still have about 20 RSVPs outstanding but I’m only expecting 2 people to decline and that’s not even a certainty. Every out of state guest accepted which I was not expecting.

I disagree. You need to be realistic with your family’s relationship to you or your parents. There are maaany people I am inviting, that I can almost 100% guarantee aren’t going to come. It’s a know your crowd kind of thing in my opinion. If you think they “might come” definitely don’t think they won’t. But I personally would risk it. But I know my family

I wouldn't count on that 20% declining. I have heard that too, but we just started getting RSVPs back and a couple of them surprised me. I've gotten a couple that I thought they would decline and they are attending.

Thanks everyone for the advice. As I feared, it seems like this is a crapshoot and there's really no way to tell how many people will RSVP yes or no. I'll probably try to cut 10 or so and not send STDs out to some of the extended guests. But rest assured that this was never an issue of inviting more than my venue could hold. Everyone that shows up will have a seat and a meal!

We invited 55, 47 accepted ( a few were singles even though we allowed plus 1s), and had 42 the day of. 3 couldn't make it because of illness, and 2 declined after they accepted when they realized their 3 kids weren't invited.

I recently went to a wedding of over 300 guests were the decline rate was about 5%. You really can't ever count on people declining. Please don't let your coordinator talk you into inviting over the amount you are comfortable with. You said that you are worried about the space being too cramped. Think of how your guests will feel trying to eat dinner, move around, dance.

We are inviting 45 people, almost all of whom are immediate family and close friends, so we don't anticipate TOO many declines. We've had three invitees say they can't come already, due to finances, distance or other personal commitments. I think the number of declines really depends a lot on your crowd, your wedding date and location, etc. and based on what you shared above, I wouldn't expect too many declines. As long as everyone can comfortably fit, sit and eat in your venue, I wouldn't worry too much about this just yet.

I'm totally stressing about this too. I'm having a DW with 85% out of towners that will be expensive attend. Our venue has a 130 minimum, so we wanted to hit that target. Because we believed so many wouldn't come, we wanted to make sure to invite enough. we have like 225 on the list now and have zero idea of what the numbers will look like...could be 130, could be 200. Starting to freak out about the higher end of that and paying out of pocket per person, but I guess we will hopefully only do this once, right?? I really want to have RSVPs due NOW so I can have an idea of the numbers.

For a local wedding 20% seems like a high decline rate. I'll be interested to hear how many of yours end up coming!!! I'm a data girl, and we need a thread where everyone lists their numbers and the variables, like how many out of town/local, etc.