Our wedding invitations went out last Monday, and we're already starting to get RSVP cards back-some as early as Thursday! One of my relatives said that they received their invite on Tuesday, which means that a couple of the guests immediately filled it out and dropped it in the mail on Wednesday for us to receive it the next day! At least we know 4 people that are excited about coming. :P
Unfortunately, I have already had a couple "regretfully decline"s. Because of my large family (I have 24 first cousins invited, plus spouses), Mr. Right and I haven't gotten to invite a large number of friends to the wedding. 6 of our "no" responses have been friends. One couple can't come because she has been training for a while for a bike ride in another state. The other couple (how has two middle school age girls) can't come because a family member is getting married on the same day. I understand, but I can't help but be disappointed that they won't be there to help celebrate.
I'll confess that a mailbox full of "yes" cards would have stressed me out as well. The reception hall comfortably holds 150, and we invited around 200 people. I realize that you're no supposed to count on people saying no, but there was just no way around it. And if all 200 would have said they were delighted to join us, I suppose everyone would be eating pot roast off their laps in a folding chair.
Thankfully, Mr. Right has said he will be the one to solve for any seating problems that arise. I doubt that he's confident that he can do it, but rather just sick of hearing me stress about it!
My dear mother, bless her heart (as we say in the south when we really don't mean it), ended up inviting more people. I had invited my great aunt and put "and girls" on the invitation, because I knew that she would have to get one of her daughters to drive her. On the phone with one of the daughters, my mom ends up extending the invitation to even more of the family - telling them that they are all welcome to bring their husbands also. So now instead of 2-3 people possibly coming, we have a potential for 8.
This is not to mention the wedding versus reception invite stress. The national park only allows weddings to have 50 guests, so we had to limit the guests to the wedding to family - parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and only a handful of cousins. Everyone else is just invited to the reception, although we want to play the wedding video at the reception site so everyone can see it. But now I'm stressed that people will be offended that they are only getting invited to the reception. My sister told me that it would look like I was just being cheap, but in fact its quite the opposite. If I was being cheap, I would have just invited them to the wedding or not at all!
OH, I so remember that! Hubby's parents have a combined 15 siblings, not counting their spouses. Plus their have been multiple marriages so there were 1st cousins, 2nd cousins, step-cousins, etc. It got sticky when we invited some 2nd/step cousins that we are WAY close to than first cousins that are double our age!
ReplyDeleteANYWAY, we invited Aunt Ethel and her spouse(fake name) but not her children. They are much older than us and had already moved away before Hubby was born. But on the RSVP she RSVP'd for 6! We invited 2!! I was steaming but even though they RSVP'd none of them ended up coming.
*sigh* I feel your stress. Our hall said it could seat 300 plus have a dance floor. Well on set-up day, I couldn't figure out to seat 150, let alone the 175 we needed and get a dance floor. I was crying, angry and not a happy bride. Luckily Hubby pulled up, pushed me out for lunch and a mani-pedi and when I got back everything was set up, tables were covered, lights were hung and I was once again a happy bride! Yay for competent hubbys/hubby-to-be:)
24 first cousins?? Are you Greek? ;)
ReplyDeleteI think people should understand only being invited to the reception if only close family and friends were invited to the wedding (BTW, found you through Rachel's blog.) With as much as there is to stress about wedding planning, I wouldn't worry so much about that. =)
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