September 3, 2016
Using statistics to plan a wedding
Sorry there have been no posts for a while. I have a whole stash of draft posts nearly ready to be published, but work, study, wedding planning and life in general have got in the way
One of the few posts I have made this year was about statistical modelling so I thought I’d quickly share something related to this – an article about how an Australian couple used statistical modelling to predict how many guests will turn up to their wedding.
I love this article, not just because I am planning a wedding and I love statistics, but also because of how it discusses some of the key components of statistical modelling, for example:
- the need for a model (including the risks of getting the model wrong which we don’t always talk about)
- building the model (what factors were taken into account and why)
- assumptions (including which assumptions turned out to not be so good)
- acknowledging uncertainty (factors out of their control and other unknown information)
- using the model (getting predictions, using a prediction interval)
- evaluating and refining the model (considering how well the model performed, and how could it be improved for future applications)
…… and probably other aspects I’ve missed in this brief summary. I’m not sure how interesting this context would be for students but for me it was super interesting and inspiring even.
And the answer to the question you may be asking is ……… yes I did create my own statistical model for our wedding And this post may or may not be related to our RSVP date being very soon ….
Update: Seems like something we missed from our model was some invitations going missing in the post!