How to see how many people can attend a wedding before booking?

Question

I have been looking at a lot of different venues to hold a wedding. There are some that hold 50, and others that hold 100+, and they are all pretty much in different cities from eachother.

For example:

If I had a choice between a venue in Spokane Washington that can hold 100-200 guests and

A venue in Portland Oregon that can only hold 50 guests.

Because I wouldn't want to book the one in Spokane that may be a little more expensive when no one will come.....

or book the one in Portland and have too many people come.

I didn't know if there was a way to find out who can actually come to each one before I book a place and let everyone know where the wedding will actually be held at....like maybe in a wedding announcement before I send out the actual invitation? How would I word it? Has anyone else ran into this problem and found a solution?

Answer 1

you should be making this decision based on your guest list.  its hard to plan a year (or even 6 months in advanced) if you will be able to attend for sure.  life happens, things come up that people have no control over.

you should pick a venue based on the numbers that you plan on inviting.  besides, you may have to pay for a room rental fee, but if you invite 100 people and 80 people rsvp, then you pay for 80, not 100.  unless the contract states otherwise.

EDIT:  at our venue, we had to sign a contract with a number on it about how many we thought would come.  we are inviting about 275-300 people.  we signed a contract for 200.  so even if 199 people show, we are paying for 200.  you can always add, but you can't subtract in our situation.

Answer 2

Don't worry, people will come as long as you give them plenty of time to make plans. Book a venue that will accomodate everyone on your guest list because it's better to have too much space than not enough. I would imagine that any city as large as Spokane or Portland would have several venues of various sizes.

Answer 3

Send a "save the date" card with a request to let you know now if they are sure they will be unable to make it for any reason?

I don't know, it's hard to see until all the RSVP cards come back in and even then you always have people who don't show up in the end.

Answer 4

Book the venue that would comfortably seat all the guests you invite should they all decide to attend.  Not everyone will be able to attend your wedding, but no, there is no polite way to ask people months and months if they'll be able to attend so that you can book a less expensive venue.  Book the one you like, and invite according to what that venue can hold.

Send out save the dates once you have booked your venue, to allow people enough time to plan, and just deal with the fact that less people than you invite will show up.

Answer 5

You can't send a 'save the date' out until you have booked the venue because it may be unavailable. What you do is sit down with your Fiance and write a guest list. It does become obvious when you do this, who will probably not attend, and then you work on the number of people you feel are strongly likely to attend.