Rant continued:

L and I had a long talk about all the work and money (Granted we can/could afford to lose it) We have put into hosting events over the last 10 years and we are done! The feeling of being unappreciated and used has brought us to the decission that we will no longer put ourselves out there takeing the abuse of those Monday moring quaterbacks who second guess us on every decission, from venue to music..

I'm sorry that sucks!

What reasons did they give for not attending?

Well really none they didn't even bother to let us know why they wern't coming. I do have to say that 3 of the couples that we had invited conatcted us right away and let us know that they couldn't make it, so we invited more people. We really didn't want to many people there, to confusing to talk and hear what they have to say if to many people are at a meeting.

We have talked more today and we decided tht we will do one event in april, and depending on the turn out and respones after we will decide if we are going to do more. If people give us bad feed back after we are taking the can't please everybody approch and will just try and ignore them.

I guess if people don't like the way we do things then they can either host their own events or go fuck themselves.

K

K...

Catharsis is always good....

Just about everyone has had the "throw a party and no one shows" experience at some point in their lives--either as host and hostess or else being the only (other) couple to show up when the hosts were obviously expecting more. The latter happened to us maybe a decade ago--it was a vanilla party but no less frustrating to the host and hostess--and awkward for us. There was a reason--the weather was frightful and the hosts should have had the foresight to cancel--but somehow we muddled through the evening and were eventually able to laugh.

We...and they...chalked it up to experience.

We think your friends are very rude to accept an invitation and not show up. If anyone did that to us they wouldn't be invited again.

Vent away! I totally understand the frustration of putting in so much effort to plan an event, only to have people bail or give no answer at all. (The latter leaving you guessing how many guests to prepare for.) It is by far my biggest pet peeve when planning events. And I think ya'll had a great idea for having a "summit" to discuss that types of gatherings folks might prefer. Unfortunately, I think those folks probably didn't want to give up an evening sans kids for a meeting. Perhaps you could schedule the meeting prior to an event you're already hosting? It would be more work on your end, but you might likely get more folks to attend. The other option would be to create an online survey for your guests to fill out.

Good luck with your April event. (Hugs)

=)