Guests Bringing Guests!

[SunshineDreamKay]

Hi ladies, 

 

 

I hope you are all well and are happily planning away  

 

 

I haven’t been on here for a while due to having to postpone our wedding in April but we are all set with our new dates in November now  

 

 

We will be having our wedding in November (at the Moon Palace Cancun) and we will have a traditional engagement in October (in London, UK as we live in the UK). My FI is Nigerian which means we will have a big traditional engagement ceremony. It will be big (approx. 350-400) way more than our wedding in Mexico of around 35-40 people! So my dilemma is we are expecting to invite approx. 300 people but I’ve been told by my FI family that we will need to account for some people bringing extra guests who we haven’t invited! I’ve been told to add “strictly by invitation only” to the invitations but I know this not a good way to go about it. Our invitations will include; The wedding invitation for Mexico, The traditional engagement invite and an additional information card (for things like RSVP, info on the traditional as my friends and family haven’t been to many if any at all, and website info). We will have people RSVP for Mexico but not the traditional as we’ve been told, many just won’t.

 

 

If we say nothing, I’ve been told a lot of guests (young and old) could show up with friends and we could expect 100+ additional guests. If we include “strictly invite only", I’ve been told only the real elders will bring friends and this way we could account for only an additional 50+ guests. Bringing your own guests to a traditional is very much the norm (I’ve been told). How do I say invite only without it sounding awful?!! I’ve decided I will have 2 traditional invites. One with invite only (for his family and friends) and one without for mine as some of mine will see it as tacky (as do I). Our invites are formal but I just don’t know how to word it. I’ve also been told to add the time with the word “promt” as many show up late or don’t believe its actually going to start at the time stated. I will not be adding promt as if you miss it, that’s your own choice. But we can have an additional 100+ guests, for money and space reasons. 

 

 

Please help we are ready to send our invites for my friend to design today and I just need help with the one line!!

 

 

 

Moon Palace Cancun Bride, November 2016

[drmariner]

Wow. Tough isn't it? I'm an American marrying a Colombian. We haven't experienced this (yet) but I've read about a similar problem in the Latin American culture with people bringing unexpected guests along for the ride. The one thing I read that seems relevant for our situation (6-8 hour travel for all of his family and friends) was to make dedicated RSVP cards for each invite. (Ton of work, I know.) An Ecuadorian woman found this helped. Each invitation had an RSVP that explicitly listed each invited person with a box next to their name.

 

This might not work since I've also heard that getting RSVPs back from certain cultures is also a hassle as it is just such a different culture. I don't fully understand the situation but perhaps this may help?

[acw271011]

@SunshineDreamKay  Wow - this is the first time I've heard of something like this. What about if you just make the wording a little bit more polite. Instead of "strictly by invitation only". I agree - it does sound a bit harsh. Maybe wording a bit softer. Maybe "please note this is an invitation only event due to limited space" (?) Probably not much help.... 

 

Good luck with this. I don't envy you needing to put together something like this!

[SunshineDreamKay]

Thanks, to both of you @@drmariner and @@acw271011 I've decided to go with both of your suggestions but in a slightly different way as the invites have already been printed now but I didn't write anything on the invite about it in the end.

 

I've had a look on weddingwire as that is how we will do our rsvp's (I thought if people are unlikely to even rsvp, I should make it as easy and effortless for everyone....which has ended up saving me some pennies! On wedding wire I can add a separate rsvp for each event and at the top of the page I'll add the wording "please note this is an invitation only event due to limited space" it sounds way better than "strictly by invitation only" sounds a little more polite I think.

 

Thanks so much to both of you, you have no idea how much this has helped! I've searched the Internet but found nothing as I guess this doesn't happen much right!

 

 

 

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@@acw271011 I tried to add you in the previous message but it didn't come up correctly. I, still trying to get my head around this site

 

 

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