Guest Calculator for a Wedding
How many guests should I invite to my wedding?
How many guests should I invite to my wedding? If you invite too few, you will be left with a smaller wedding than you anticipated. If you invite too many, your venue may not be able to accommodate everyone and you will likely go over budget. This is a common question that a couple will face when planning their wedding. Luckily, we have created a wedding guest count calculator that will give you a much better estimate of how many guests will attend your wedding based on how many guests that you invite. Our algorithm takes into consideration historical attendance data and wedding venue expert advice. Try out our wedding guest count calculator for yourself!
Note: Each couple’s wedding is different and actual attendance can vary per unique family, friend, and cultural propensities as well as outlying circumstances such as illness. Be sure to use the correct wedding guest calculator to get the most accurate estimate. For those of you planning a destination wedding, use our destination wedding guest attendance calculator instead of the above traditional wedding guest count calculator. Guest attendance will be significantly lower for destination weddings than traditional weddings because destination weddings are more expensive for guests to attend and may require passports to travel if abroad.
Why is our wedding guest count estimate calculator so accurate?
Our algorithm is broken up into 2 parts. When calculating how many guests will attend your wedding ceremony or reception we need to consider how many people are invited both locally and from out-of-state. There will be a significant difference in attendance when comparing 100 locals to 100 out-of-state guests. For obvious reasons, locals are more likely to show up and cut a rug than invitees that would have to make more of a trek to get to your wedding. Because of this, our algorithm will treat locals and out-of-towners a little differently. We tend to believe that your lovable neighbor, Jessica, will more likely RSVP than your former neighbor, Jesse, who now lives 5 states away. Hopefully both of them will attend however Jessica only needs to make a short drive while Jesse will have to make more travel arrangements, book a hotel, and take a plane to get to your wedding venue.
Other wedding websites may suggest that there is a quick formula for calculating an accurate guest count but that’s not necessarily the case. There is no simple flat formula to estimate how many guests will attend your wedding even if you know how many locals and out-of-state guests you are inviting. For instance, if you invite 200 locals and 100 people from out-of-state, you can’t just multiply invited locals by 0.9 and invited out-of-towners by 0.75 to estimate that 255 ([200 * 0.9] + [100 *0.75]) guests will RSVP. It’s a little more complicated than that. With the more people that you invite there will be a higher percentage of people that won’t attend your wedding. It’s not because you and your partner aren’t adorable as a couple. The reason why is that you’ll invite your closest family and friends first then invite other friends and coworkers to fill any remaining seats. Your closest family and friends are much more likely to attend than say your college roommate’s charismatic 3rd cousin, Michelle. While it might be nice for Michelle to attend, she is much less likely to RSVP than your sweet Aunt Jackie. Then it’s no surprise that our wedding guest count estimate calculator assumes that the 1st person you invite has a much closer relationship with you and your partner than the 300th person that you add to your guest list. The number of people that you invite isn't the only factor that will effect how many guests RSVP. If you don't give your guests enough notice, you may see even less people attend. This is why we recommend sending out invitations at least 10 to 12 weeks before traditional domestic weddings.
Following this logic, you may notice significant variances in the percentage of guests that are estimated to attend your wedding when you use our wedding guest count estimate calculator. Let's assume that you send out invitations 10 to 12 weeks before your wedding. If you enter a total of 50 guests (40 local and 10 out-of-state), you will see that 46, or 91% of the people that you invited are estimated to attend. Then again, if you enter a total of 400 invited guests (300 local and 100 out-of-state), you will notice that 280, or only 70% of your guest list are estimated to attend.
Try it out for yourself!