To invite or not to invite...

According to my All-In-One Wedding Planner from Google Docs, I am supposed to assemble my guest list first because it is the biggest driver of the wedding budget.  Easier said than done.

My list and B's list were easy.  We have only so many close friends.  The parents lists are more complicated, particularly my parents.  You see, they expect to invite every single person they know, anyone who has invited them to their or their child's weddings, and of course anyone that they have ever talked to.  Ever.  In my dad's words, Tradition = Family Pride.  What does this mean??!!??  So I have had to control this process closely and asked my parents to compile their list with priority rankings.  If you don't make the A-List, you probably will not be getting an invitation (but I didn't tell them that part).  'Nuff said.

The wedding planner formula goes something like this:
80% that you invite will show up
10% of those that said they would show up will actually not show up
I don't know what this means.  Lets put real numbers to this.  Say we want to invite 100 guests (in reality it will be more, but this makes for easy math.  As Professor Granoff says, it's a pedagogical example).  Okay, back to the example.  80 of them will show up.  But then 8 of them won't show up?  Or 80 of them will come.  Period.  And ~90 people will RSVP that they will come, but 9 or so won't so we're back to 80 people?  Oh gosh, confusing.  I think these are 2 separate rules.  I can think of so many ways this doesn't work.  I guess I will be counting RSVPs carefully.

As it is, not including the parents lists, we are at 85 guests plus their +1s.  We considered not doing +1, but having been a single guest at a wedding where I didn't know very many people, I would have appreciated bringing a companion along.  Maybe we should reconsider.  Needless to say, I think we are going to have to pair this down significantly, especially after my mom's email saying she was "only going to invite 100 of her closest friends".  And I guarantee every single one of them will show up for the free food.  :)  EEK.  Let the chopping begin!!