Pretending to Math: Blue Moon Guests

This is one post that I have been putting off. Despite the fact that I have a wonderful computer full of resources to math for me, I have despised the subject since I was a little kid, dreaded getting called up the board to work problems, and the sight of pie charts still makes me a little nauseous.

But since these particular numbers have to do with my fabulous wedding guests, I am going to suck it up just this once and impress you all with my non-math. Pie chart ahead!

If you insist, Ryan. Via MemeGenerator

We invited 119 people to the Blue Moon wedding, not including ourselves. This was a far cry from the intimate guest list we envisioned, but after paring our list down to eighty, the outcry from our family was too great to ignore. We also planned to leave children under thirteen off the list, which was another thing that didn't happen.

Our guests hail from nine different states, but over half of the guests we invited are right here in beautiful Tennessee. A significant portion of guests are from Georgia, where I have family and where both Mr. Blue Moon and I attended school, and we also invited several friends and coworkers from our current home, Mississippi.

96 of our guests RSVPed "yes," which gave us the expected attendance of just a tick over 80% of our invited guests. 98% of our local guests are attending, but none of our guests from the coasts (California or DC) are attending. That means that no one who would have to fly is coming, and most everyone else has under a six hour drive. All of our Mississippi guests are attending, as well as the majority of our guests from Georgia.

We used WeddingWire's Guest List feature to track our guests, and ended up putting most people in manually as the paper replies got mailed back to us. However, we also enabled an online RSVP feature on our wedding website, and about ten guests sent their replies that way. It was much more convenient when guests responded online because WeddingWire updates it in their system automatically.

I only had to hunt down eight or nine people who did not respond at all and harass them for an RSVP, so that was good. Though our venue doesn't have a minimum requirement, we do need the final headcount for the caterer, and our ceremony venue only seats 100 max, so we took another risk there and will walk in on our wedding day to a full church!

We expected fewer people to come since we have both been so transient for the past five years, but we are seriously pleased with such a good turn out and can rest easy knowing that even though our wedding is bigger than we imagined, we are getting to celebrate with so many people who love and care about us.

A couple of tips:

1. Number those reply cards. If you are going to mail traditional paper reply cards with your invitations, make sure you number the backs. I used a light pencil in the corner, and wrote the matching number next to the family on my guest list. We got several cards back where the family forgot to write their name. We even got cards back where people marked their meal choices, but didn't write their names down. Make sure you have a way to check for when cards come back blank!
2. Follow up with people. Some of the people I had to track down to figure out if they were coming or not just assumed I would know they were coming. My gut was to just let it lie if someone didn't reply by the deadline, and assume they weren't coming, but my headcount would have been way off if I had done that. Ignore the awkwardness, and just ask people if they miss your reply deadline. Some people lost their reply card, some people forgot when the deadline was, but they had every intention of coming.
3. Don't take it personally when people can't make it. On the other hand, some people who I really DID assume would come won't be able to make it. One of my favorite friends from college sent regrets without an explanation, and my cousin is busy with veterinary school this summer. As much as I will miss seeing them at the wedding, I know that my wedding is only the most important thing in the world in my eyes, and life happens. Instead of feeling hurt, remember that people would most likely be there if they could, and focus on all the love of the people who are able to come.

Did your guest list blow up past the number of people you thought you'd invite? Were you surprised by your final number of guests?