A cautionary tale

Wedding #3 of our 2009 spring wedding season was beautiful. A year of planning happily ended on a high note, guests were happy, the couple was happy. However, let’s rewind to four weeks before the wedding.

Of the 225 folks that the couple had invited, only 65-75% were "supposed to" RSVP with a yes, statistically-speaking, that is. Imagine the financial horror, to the tune of nearly $10,000 more than was budgeted for, when, at final count, 200 people RSVP’d. Do the quick math, that is a nearly 90% response rate.

I’m not sure if this high response rate is partly due to the economy (and everyone wanting stuff for free), but FAIR WARNING: If you do not have it in your budget to seat and feed all of the folks on your invitations list PLEASE REVISE YOUR INVITATIONS LIST.

To those who may have parents partially or completely funding their wedding – whose parents may also have a large “invitation guest wish list” give your parents this very important message:

• You are welcome to invite whomever you want; since you are funding the wedding.
• However, if you are to invite all that you wish to invite you will need to contribute “amount” more money. Otherwise, we are not able to afford the wedding.

Plain and simple

Be honest with yourselves and your budgets or you risk getting bitten by the RSVP Fairy.

Alisha Forrester Scott of La Ruche can be reached for comments or questions at [email protected].