Reception Guest Count: Understanding Expected Attendance by Season

Question
Is there a diffrent percentage that show up for diffrent seasons like summer compared to winter?
Beverly
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Followup To
Question -
We are looking for a place to hold our reception. We have 213 guest on our list. The problem is every place we go everyone tells us something different as to how many will show at the reception thus requiring a diffrent size room. Is there some type of rule or what would you say will show?
Answer -
Hi Bev, It can be a difficult thing to determine that is why there are RSVP's but since you are in the initial stage you must guess as to how many guest will finally make it to your reception. What I find to be the average is anywhere between 80% and 90% will show up. This figure will vary depending on how far out you are streching your list. If you have many relitives that live accross the country and you know thay will not be able to attend, you may end up with a higher percentage of regrets. On the other hand if everyone is local there will be less regrets. It does sound like you are trying to cut the room size close but be carefull how close. You may want to ask your reception location if you could see it set up for your number of people to see if you will have the room between tables.

Answer
Hi Beverly and welcome back, There is not really a differance between the seasons as you had asked but I can say anybody that picks a holiday weekend like memorial day.labor day, 4th of July or Christmas the count is always less than they expected or they got many regrets. I could only speculate as to why.
Gary & Teri