Wedding dropouts

[Hilda23]

Hi everyone,

my partner and I are getting married soon. I have been struggling a bit with the amount of people that have dropped out of the wedding. I don’t mean people who declined the initiation as there were lots of these anyway but people who RSVPd yes and then messaged to say they aren’t able to come for one reason or another. We have had an amazing array of reasons. I know life gets in the way and emergencies happen but none of these reasons bar one are the latter.
Most of the people RSVPd yes months ago and then have cancelled weeks to a few days before the wedding. In total we had 15 people cancel. Our wedding is in the UK and although some of our guests were coming from abroad, most were travelling in the UK. I had even close family members do this and some guests say they were coming then not coming, coming then not coming. Not only has it been a nightmare to keep track of / sort out table plans and catering but I am left feeling a bit sad and disappointed.
Is this a normal in anyone’s experience ?
thank you from a tired bride to be

It’s shitty of them. You will get the usual posters saying it’s an invitation, not a summons, etc etc but a wedding is a big deal and to accept and then pull out without a good excuse is poor form.

Does your wedding require any travel and overnight stays or is it local?

Just to add that I had a micro wedding during Covid as we had to cancel our original plans, and even out of our 10 invited guests, one accepted and then pulled out, so it is increasingly common for people to be flaky.

@Retnolds it involves travel and overnight stay but my partner and I have lived all over the place so our guests are not from one part of the country.

I hear you OP. We're having a small wedding of 40 and I'm fully expecting a few drop outs. If people don't want to / can't come they should tell you when you send the invitations. Otherwise they're just messing around. If it's not an emergency, they've made a commitment to you and need to find away to work around whatever it is

My ‘best friend’ who i was previously a bridesmaid for dropped out of my wedding.
she dropped out of my hen do after deposits had already been paid (with no message to me, just a ‘sorry I can’t come now’ leaves the chat) , then 3 weeks before my wedding she broke her foot and pulled out of being a guest at the weddings.
she’d originally said she’d do my wedding flowers for me as a gift (which I offered to cover costs for but she insisted I wasn’t to) which she then couldn’t follow through on.
i was devastated she wasn’t there with me, and I didn’t get so much as a congratulations text from her after the day.

People can be off around weddings.
it hurts but when the wedding comes you won’t even notice the people missing x

It’s awful isn’t it? I think it’s just normal behaviour unfortunately. I had a friend who rsvp’d yes completely ghost me a few weeks before the wedding. I’d booked her a room and everything but luckily realised early enough to cancel it. We got married where we worked (hotel) and invited all our colleagues to our evening do. Not 1 showed up!! I booked a function room for my husbands 30th and we got so many drop outs in the days running up to it I almost cancelled it out of frustration! I did cancel the DJ as it would’ve been silly with the numbers we had. I know my brother had lots of drop outs on the day at his wedding. Just enjoy it and sod them.

I really feel for you OP and I think you’re completely justified to feel upset about it, but don’t let it spoil the day. I think people are increasingly unreliable about attending events these days, but with something like a wedding (given all the work involved) it’s unforgivably rude to drop out once you’ve accepted unless there’s a really good reason.

She's no friend..best off without. Beyond rude. I'd drop her like a bad habit.

Suspect guest left buying flights to the last minute and have panicked at the cost. Christmas is coming too.

If you've lived all over they aren't close friends anymore iyswim. You don't share quick chatty coffees or pop over. So they don't feel as invested- not mean, just natural. Both you and they have new friends to create a day to day life with.

Just invite locals in the uk.

We had this with our wedding last year. Two families of three and one family of five all cancelled after originally RSVPing to say yes. One group cancelled the week before the wedding and had the nerve to say “hope it’s not too short notice!”

Yep it’s normal. We had 5 no shows on the day! One who RSVP’d to the invitation and added someone extra (family member with extra needs) on we said ok and added them onto the numbers then on the day no text or anything just didn’t show up! To be honest I didn’t realise until the meal they were missing! We were also paying £80 per head for the meal! Wasn’t a huge wedding either under 50 for the meal.

We had 5 drop out, 4 with a month to go, one the same week (her portion was eaten by greedy cousins!)

Recently got married and had a number of people drop out within a week to go - v frustrating re-doing table plans, upgrading evening guests etc. I even had one guest who just didn't turn up on the day - despite rsvping and messaging only days before to say she was really excited etc (mental health related but I was upset to be messed around and a wasted meal/drinks paid for).