How many guests to expect?

[IrishLily]

I'm having a custom wedding in Sept. of '08. I want to have AAR as the reception site but that means a minimum of 100 people. I'm just having a hard time gauging how many people I think will actually come. I've read other posts where they say to send out a survey, but I have some anti-disney people in the family so I don't want them to know about it until they get the save-the-dates.

I know Sept is a bad month for a lot of people because of school and sports, but I'll be graduating that May, and so will a lot of my friends...so they'll just be starting their new jobs and won't have the ability to come to the wedding. It's so hard to please everyone, because I really do want everyone to come.

How many invites did you send, and how many actually came?

And what did you do with anti-disney people? Some hate disney for no reason, but I want to make sure they have a good time no matter what. When I see that other people are enjoying themselves, then I enjoy myself.

Sorry for such a lengthy post...ugh.

 

[lurkyloo]

I'm wondering about this too. From what I've heard, there seem to be two schools of thought: The general consensus on destination weddings is that you'll get something like 2/3 of your guest list actually attending (this is not an official figure - it's just my math!). However, the DFTW people will tell you that you'll get a higher number of attendees than at a regular destination wedding because people get excited about going to Disney World.

The other thing I hear a lot on this board is that many guests were grumbling about going to WDW, but after the wedding everyone went on and on about how great it was, how they'd never done anything like it, etc.

So...this probably doesn't help you at all! But if you do a search for threads on guest lists and number of people attending, I know you'll find posts where people list how many they invited and how many actually came...

 

[wendy46001]

It truly depends on your guest....and your location
they say roughly 20% will decline...and it goes up from there...we were an exception to the rule we sent out 106 invites and 98 people came...so you really never know until you ask your guests...

and if you need any help filling the AA ...DH and I love weddings...

 

[magdog79]

We had the same issues and decided that we would send out a feeler letter where we explainwed what we doing for our wedding. We gave the dates and some basic info that there would be room and ticket discounts. We told them we were just trying to get a better count so we don't over estimate (by get a location to big and make it look like no one came) or under estimate and have to change locations and get stuck with a location we wouldn't have chosen.
We were inviting whole families so that our guests could turn it into vacations. We had about 140 people including children on our wedding list. When we sent out our idea letter this past April around the 1 yr mark. We asked our guests for a response if they were planning on coming in April '08, if they wanted more information or would not be attending.
After 3 weeks time we started receiving responses back and as the count stand now we have 45 people attending including the wedding party. This allowed us to really get a better count on invitation, food, location and transportation costs for our wedding.

 

[IrishLily]

Hahaha. I will be inviting you if we're short, because I'm sure Disney will still make us pay for 100! 2/3 would be perfect actually and put me right at 100, but I know that everyone's wedding attendance varies.

It makes me really happy to hear that even those that were opposed to going ended up loving it. I was under the school of thought that if they aren't open to having fun then they won't. But it's disney, and even if you don't like the parks, there's still a million other things to do.

Thanks for the input!

 

[DVCGirl49]

We are having our reception at AAR as well, and were having the same concerns / debate.

We did send out 'Preliminary Response Cards' with a short Save the Date packet that we made up ourselves, that answered a bunch of questions people were asking on why Disney / logistics / etc. We sent it out about 2 weeks before the official Disney Save the Dates went out.

For us it worked really well, and we got a really good handle on how many people to expect. Currently, we have: 106 who said yes (33%), 117 who said no (37%), and 96 said they aren't sure yet (30%).

My cousin had her wedding in Disney last fall, in the end roughly 40% of those invited were able to attend.

So I guess it really depends on your guest list, as I've heard many, including as Wendy posted above who've had much higher acceptance rates.

Even in light of the anti'Disney people, I would highly recommend sending out a 'preliminary response card' / small info packet as we did. The information on the cards has been extremely helpful. We know now that we are not expecting 300+ people , that we definitely have our required 100 guests, and at most will have 200 guests. Suprisingly, no one including the anti-Disney people complained about it. And it also stopped the endless ringing of the phone, with people asking the same questions over and over again. If you would like to see the card we send and/or the newsletter, just PM me.

As to the anti-Disney people and what they'll say/do......we've had our share of those too. We decided very early on, not to let it bother us...because this is what we want and are going to do. There will always be SOMEONE who doesn't like the plan, and finds the need to grumble.....but you know what? The day really isn't about them, yes it would be nice if they'd join you for it, but it's ultimately about you and DF and what YOU want the day/place/events to be.

HTH

 

[wendy46001]

Hahaha. I will be inviting you if we're short, because I'm sure Disney will still make us pay for 100!

Your right about that...we paid for two invisible children to hit the 100 mark

 

[figmentfan814]

I have to admit I was skeptical about our guest count growing too, but as my planner predicted the count has continued to go up. We were originally planning on around 40 and are now up to 65. In fact, our ceremony is at the AAR and we were going to have the reception brunch in the Parlor upstairs, needless to say we had to move to the Livings Seas because we wouldn't fit anymore. We did what several other people have mentioned and sent out packets of information for our guests to get feelers from people if they were going to try to come or not.

 

[StitchBride]

I guess we're more of an exception, out of the 106 people we invited, 54 came, we had a lot of out of town/out of state invites (not within driving distance) and a lot of older people, which could be part of the reason

 

[Skylarr29]

Will Disney bump you if you don't have enough people to fill the AAR? With the final guest count not due until a few days before the wedding would they move your location in that short amount of time? We are expecting 100 to the T and if some don't show I am so worried that after we have planned and planned we will get moved... and I really want to use the AAR because it is just so wonderful.

 

[lurkyloo]

Will Disney bump you if you don't have enough people to fill the AAR? With the final guest count not due until a few days before the wedding would they move your location in that short amount of time? We are expecting 100 to the T and if some don't show I am so worried that after we have planned and planned we will get moved... and I really want to use the AAR because it is just so wonderful.

I really don't think they'd bump you at that late date and being that close to 100 - as long as you pay for 100 people, they'll be happy! (see "invisible children" above )

 

[aprincess72]

Maybe DH and I should start a free service as fill in Disney wedding guests.

"We'll help you meet your minimum and provide hours of entertaining conversation for your guests!"

 

[Skylarr29]

Maybe DH and I should start a free service as fill in Disney wedding guests.

"We'll help you meet your minimum and provide hours of entertaining conversation for your guests!"

I am seriously starting to considor this option lol! DF will think I am nuts lol (well even more nuts than I already am!)

 

[wendy46001]

I really don't think they'd bump you at that late date and being that close to 100 - as long as you pay for 100 people, they'll be happy! (see "invisible children" above )

To quote our wedding Coordinator missing one or two is fine....but missing ten we have to talk....so i guess its totally up to them

Again if you need fillers we are all here for ya

 

[IrishLily]

Ok, so I guess telling them that it will be in Disney isn't the worst thing. I'm just going to suck it up and take the crap that some people say in order to save myself from booking the wrong place and causing serious stress closer to the wedding.

I can hear the gossip starting now...lol.

DVCGirl49: I don't have a high enough post count to PM you (how sad...) But I would like any and all info you could give me on what you did for the send outs.

 

[magdog79]

Ok, so I guess telling them that it will be in Disney isn't the worst thing. I'm just going to suck it up and take the crap that some people say in order to save myself from booking the wrong place and causing serious stress closer to the wedding.

I can hear the gossip starting now...lol.

DVCGirl49: I'm not really sure when the save-the-date cards go out, considering I haven't booked my date yet (sept '08), but about how far out did you send those "guesstimate" cards from the wedding date?

We sent our guestimate after we had set our wedding date between the 1 yr and 11 month time frame. we gave them 3 weeks to respond with an answer.

 

[DVCGirl49]

IrishLilly, you should have a PM from me in your mailbox.