So Many Guests!

Posted Monday, January 07, 2008 6:26 PM

I'm very excited, and a little nervous at the same time! Seems like I'm getting that a lot these days as the wedding draws nearer. Here's the reason this time. Our venue is a lump sum amount that covers a variety of different things for the price. One of the contingencies is the package covers up to 150 guests. If we have less than 150 guests, the price does not go down, but if we have more than 150 we have to pay through the nose for each guest over 150.

That being said, Anthony and I were careful with our guest list. Obviously we want to maximize our guest count to get the most for our money, but don't want to go over. How do you do that? I have no idea! But what we did was came up with a final guest count of about 165 people to be invited. We figured if we have more people than average RSVP they will not be coming, we have a few extra invites that we can send to some friends that we've recently met (like our new neighbors) or people we just couldn't squeeze onto the guest list the first time - taboo to some, I know but we're doing what we can with what we've got and hope that it doesn't come down to this anyway.

Well, it appears that I may get my wish. Obviously since we invited 165 people when we can only accommodate 150 we're anticipating some people to reply they will not be able to attend, and I think that we will actually get more than 15 people respond that way, especially when we take into consideration grandparents who don't travel so well anymore (ALL of our family is out of state, or out of the country, as is a good number of my side of the guest list too) and of course those relatives and old family friends you haven't seen in years or who don't come to many family reunions. We figured we'd be good. Heh, heh, I may need to re-figure that.

Sending out save the dates apparently increased the likelihood of our guests attending. Hey, great! We kinda hoped for that, but maybe not to this magnitude. We're finding out that friends of my parents, who don't really even know me, who know my sister MUCH better (heck she used to play with their daughter!), who didn't attend my sister's wedding, have said that they will be attending our wedding. In fact as of last month, they'd already made flight reservations for our May 3rd wedding. Wow! Cool, ok it'll be nice to seem them again, and I'm sure my parents are absolutely thrilled they'll get to see them.

Now, enter Aunt L. Aunt L is the wife of my dad's brother, who passed away suddenly when I was about 7. Aunt L and her daughter didn't attend many of our family reunions/functions (not that we had too many anyway) over the years, didn't go to my cousin's wedding, didn't go to my sisters, we all assumed because it was hard for them to see my Uncle's side of the family when he was no longer around. Totally understandable, but we still missed them just the same. I actually never met Aunt L until I was 20! Well, guess who's coming to the wedding? Aunt L! And her longtime boyfriend (real nice guy! met him the first time I met her  , and then of course there's her daughter, who's now married and has a child. FIVE more people that I anticipated not to be attending!

We're already half way through the 15 extra people, that I thought for sure would be a safe amount to go over our 150 limit. I really do know we'll be safe when we start factoring grandparents whom we know cannot travel, and that won't change no matter what. I'm sure we'll have some co-workers and friends who won't be attending either. In the end I think everything will be fine (or copesetic as my dad keeps referring to wedding budget things as).

**Ironically I had a phone conversation with my father in the middle of writing this post and the topic of the final invited guest count vs. venue alloted guests came up and he started freaking out about the 165 vs. 150 number as well. He didn't quite understand that my mom and I had already discussed this and we thought 15 extra guests was a safe amount to "over invite." However, I think I see where I'm getting my worrying habits from.