How many people came to your wedding?

The trick to this is to invite only the amount of people your venue can hold and that you can host properly.

We could afford to host everyone we invited properly, but we really did want a smaller number and quite a few of those people were invited due to etiquette.

We invited 157 and 127 are coming, which is exactly where we wanted to be.

You definitely want to make sure you plan for every person you're inviting. There have been a lot of ladies that posted on these forums that they had 100% attendance.

My FH and I wanted a smaller wedding so we found a venue that holds up to 85. We invited 80, and 50 people have rsvp'd yes.

My oldest daughter got married in the middle of Michigan winter and had 96% attend her wedding and reception. Her sister got married on one of the most beautiful June days you could imagine and only about 63% attend. You can just never tell!

I will share a story with you from another board I have been on for many years. The bride's FMIL SWORE all the distant family wouldn't attend because of the travel but needed to be invited for "etiquette purposes."

Well, one of the invited was Great Great Great Aunt Hildegard (or whatever her name was) and she was 90ish. Hildegard decided she had it in her to make the trip and wanted to see the family one last time. Well, when word got around to all those other far away relatives that ol' Hildy was gonna be there they ALL showed up. That was one pissed off bride when she came back after her wedding to tell us how that all shook out.

Do you have an Hildegard's in the bunch?

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My gosh, this is my nightmare. My mother and fiance's mother are like that bride's FMIL.

"Oh, they couldn't POSSIBLY make it."

"She's sick - she can't travel so far!"

"They never travel! Why would they suddenly decide to now?"

This has been the ongoing fight with our mothers for 6 months. THIS is what keeps me awake at night. Because we pride ourselves on "etiquette". I can only imagine what that bride felt!

We invited 85, 80 RSVP'd Yes, and 65 showed up.

We based our numbers off the 80 guests.

Always count on 100% attendance. It happens more often than you think. Those people who you "know" won't come, may just come.

We invited 220, about 40 of those were “etiquette” invites. We ended up with 170 rsvp yes, and 168 show up.

View Quoted Comment Out of curiosity, how did you and your partner deal with the no-shows after the wedding? Did you talk to them, or let it slide? I have several extended family members that have been known to flake so I wouldn’t be surprised if they no-showed for my wedding

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Let it go, emergencies happen, babysitters cancel last minute.

View Quoted Comment We were perfectly fine with 10 of the no shows because it was due to the US government being an absolute nightmare with tourism visas. They applied right after we got engaged because we knew it'd be a long process but yeah there was nothing they could do.

I had one aunt who couldn't come because her kid was sick so obviously I wasn't upset. Another aunt and uncle were "too tired" to come and texted us about an hour before. We had another aunt and uncle that literally gave no excuse and didn't say anything to us. We haven't talked to them since because I've always had a strained relationship with my aunt when she told me I was a spoiled selfish brat for getting therapy when my parents divorced.

127 invited, 88 came. The wedding was near San Francisco in September. People flew in from the east coast, Norway, and Canada, and guests from San Jose did not come! You just never no. We had a blast with the friends and family that were there.

We invited 35, 25 people came. We were expecting one more, but my grandma had recently broken her hip and she was having a bad day so grandpa stayed with her that day.

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""They never travel! Why would they suddenly decide to now?""

I would answer this one with: "well, they might travel if they have a chance to see the rest of the family all in one place on my dime."

Might be a bit direct but sometimes I can be a bit too direct.

After the Hildegard story I think I would tell both moms that.

I am only in my 50's so far from old and "she doesn't travel anymore." I would certainly imagine that if I were in poorer health and I had a chance to see a lot of the family all in one place that would encourage me to accept a wedding invitation.

Be firm!!

We invite 125, 72 came. We has a US destination wedding, which slightly reduced our numbers. We didn't have any no-shows, but a couple 2-3 ppl cancelled less than a week out. We did invite the extended family in AZ and none came. My friend invited 147 or so had about 125 RSVP yes and 6 no-shows. Plan for 100% attendance (as in, invite the number of people you can really afford) but don't expect it. Only death and taxes are 100% in this life.

We invited 125. 109 RSVP'd as attending. (8 later explained why they wouldn't be able to attend a month before the ceremony) so 3 days before the wedding, we thought the other 101 would be there...NOT! 62 attended and I haven't heard from the rest. Either way, the LOVE of each other and those in attendance kept us lifted on our day.

For the better part...The absence of the rest helped us to weed out who's not going to be invited to any other events in our future.