What is percentage of people who come to a wedding/reception that are invited?

[DonaBella]

I would appreciate everyone''s experiences with those who you invite to the wedding/reception and who actually show up...My son and his fiancee are getting married next July 2006 and are working on the guest list as we speak. Since this new territory for all of us, please share your experience and knowledge on this...Thanks in advance!

 

[jellybean]

We had a really big wedding -- invited 400 people and had 320 come. That is an 80% show-up rate (or a 20% decline rate). When I ordered my invitations I had heard to expect about a 25% decline rate and we had slightly lower than that. We had our wedding the second weekend in August, and most of the people that had declined did b/c they were taking their kids back to college or were on vacation.

It also depends on when you have the wedding. For example, one of my friends had her wedding on 4th of July weekend and had a lower response rate than expected b/c so many people have family plans of their own that weekend. If the wedding is in June, you will most likely have people decline b/c of other weddings or graduations.