The Good Ol’ 20% “Rule”
By jackieandtom | posted on September 19, 2012 at 10:01am
Estimating and Finalizing Your Guest Count with the 20% Rule
The invites have been sent, the replys are in and I only had to track a handful of people down to see if they would be attending or not. Life is good!
They say (whoever “they” is) that you can count on 20% of the people you invite will not come to the wedding. When I first heard this, I was early on in the planning process and thought that percentage sounded a bit high. If you invited 300 people, at 20% not coming, that turns out to be 60 people. Wowzers!
When I heard this, I looked through my list and tried to guess who those people would be. For the most part, I assumed it would largely be the out-of-towners because of distance and travel costs. When the responses began to trickle in, Tom and I were amazed at those who we didn’t think would be coming said they will be there to celebrate, and people we thought would absolutely positively be there were some who said “No, will toast from afar.” Reasons included other weddings out of town, not being able to get off of work, honeymoons, illnesses, and of course what we originally assumed- the travel distance and cost of traveling.
In the end, Tom and I invited 221 people and the good ol’ percentage rule held to be true. Out of those 221 invited, 178 guests responded yes. That’s almost exactly 20%.
Has the 20% rule been true with you or brides you know? I’d love to hear about your experiences!
