Math error

I’m sorting through wedding response cards (oh, what fun!). It’s not that bad; given that I’m inviting people to what amounts to a destination wedding, a roughly 50% acceptance rate is okay in my book — most of the people who couldn’t come I’m not terribly surprised — other, closer friends weddings, the cost of airfare, etc.

But as I’m going through the invitations, there’s this nagging thought at the back of my head: this stack is really small.

Then I figured out why, and I will share my brilliance with you.

The ceremony site Mandrina and I chose (there weren’t many to choose from in post-Ivan Pensacola) has a maximum capacity of 180 people. Fire-marshall-says. So that was our maximum, and, knowing Mandrina, it was our target number. Unfortunately, the politics of negotiating on what concentric circles of acquaintances to invite led to a smaller number, but still should be fairly nice (I don’t know for sure; Mandrina’s people’s response cards are largely, well, not here.)

I was just looking at this pile, and I was surprised when the small stack of cards I held correspond to close to 60 people. Then I had a flash of brilliance, and I went up and told Mandrina, “We did something reallly, incredibly, dumb.”

You see, most people invite couples to weddings. Most of our friends either have a significant other, or are already married (I made a funny!).

For a attendee set of 180 people, that makes 90 couples. Throw in some singles, and the number of invitations needed goes up; throw in some younger-ones, and the number of invitations goes down.

How many invitations do you need for 180 people?

Definitely not the 200 we ordered.

Doh.