It's A Guest List, Not A Guess List!

Eric Banana and Astro Girl are literally going bananas.

After squeezing out a wedding date by "brute force", they thought that they can finally proceed to booking the wedding banquet venue. Well, obviously they did not think hard enough. Their preliminary estimate of the number of tables they would require for the wedding banquet was based on back-of-the-envelope calculations. Their primary concern has been with maximum capacity, i.e. how many tables can be fitted comfortably in the wedding banquet venue.

Their primary concern moved on to secondary school after they re-did their mathematics. They have overestimated the number of guests they want to invite and failed to account for the confirmed-attendees-vs-invitees difference, as well as no-shows on the actual day. Guessing who cannot make it is an inexact science, almost an art. So while they have been looking at maximum capacity, they should really have examined minimum capacity more carefully.

Most hotels and restaurants require couples to book a minimum number of tables in order to secure the usage of the whole place. From a business perspective, it is to ensure that there is enough scale to sustain the profitability of the dinner. This minimum capacity varies from place to place. No matter how good a banquet venue is, it's a no-go when couples are not able to fulfil the minimum capacity requirement.

While Eric Banana and Astro Girl are cognizant of the possibility that their guest list may expand eventually, they are reluctant to bear the risk of overcommitting at this point of time. Thankfully, minimum capacity requirements also differ for weekdays and weekends. This was also one of the reasons why Eric Banana and Astro Girl chose to get married on a Friday.