What was your RSVP rate?

tammym1001 · September 2014

Angelaandyitzi said:

tammym1001 said:

We had 100% of responses (all yes) by the RSVP date which was 2 weeks before the wedding. We had a small wedding though so I'm sure that made it a lot easier on us. We pretty much knew everyone was coming before we sent out invites.

Lucky! We've only invited 150 people including vendors we're feeding. We'll have probably 90-100 come. It's a week past the RSVP date, and I have still not received an RSVP card since weeks before the RSVP date (only 50% of cards returned). I've gotten some answers by hunting them down online, but I'm still waiting on 14 answers, and I have no way to get a hold of several of them. That's two tables' worth of people, and I'm supposed to pay the florist today. I could have anywhere from 10-12 tables/centerpieces/linens, and I need to figure this out within an hour. One word can sum this all up: RUDE!

wrigleyville: Well, I'm complaining about people not RSVPing at all, primarily that they will not RSVP at all by the wedding date (or EVER, which I've dealt with EVERY time I try to throw any form of gathering--I've given up on playing hostess besides this...and I should have given up on this, too, I guess). As I said, people's work schedules didn't irk me as much as people just pretending I don't exist. However, if I were a guest and didn't know my work schedule, rather than ignoring the bride, I'd call or message them and say "Hey, I'm sorry, I don't know yet; I'm waiting on my schedule. But I'll let you know ASAP!" Not ignore the invitation altogether.

150 is a lot of people so I can understand why you are struggling getting RSVPs. When I said we had a small wedding it was 35 people.

Marzipan13 · September 2014

Our RSVP date was August 25th (for a September 13th wedding) - a lot of FI's family didn't get them in until after the deadline, and even then, they told us after the money / final count to the reception venue was due (FI's extended family are slackers, seriously - I've been warned about this since the day we got engaged).

We definitely didn't start calling people before August 25th, but luckily FMIL did most of the pestering after August 25th because they're her family - and I'm SO glad that shit is over.

goldchocobo.defunct635829490514903826 · September 2014

Marzipan13 said:

Our RSVP date was August 25th (for a September 13th wedding) - a lot of FI's family didn't get them in until after the deadline, and even then, they told us after the money / final count to the reception venue was due (FI's extended family are slackers, seriously - I've been warned about this since the day we got engaged).

We definitely didn't start calling people before August 25th, but luckily FMIL did most of the pestering after August 25th because they're her family - and I'm SO glad that shit is over.

SITB

4 DAYS, MARZ! You ready? Woot woot!!

PrincessOfHavoc · September 2014

None back yet. Oh wait, I have to mail them first. Which I did today.

RSVP - October 15th

Final number - October 24th

Wedding - October 31st.

[Deleted User] · September 2014

Gosh, it seems like my caterer is the only one that required the count more than a week in advance (2+ weeks even). One week in advance would have been SO much better since I have several people are unsure about their work schedule so far ahead of time.

I had to give my count to the caterer and write them a check today. I still had 4 people who were unsure about their work schedules, and 6 people who I'm just not able to get a hold of at all. I had 95 yeses (152 invited), so I just told them 100, though I'm probably paying for people who won't come, which is lame.

Still no additional RSVP cards since prior to the deadline. I definitely don't expect any more at this point, though the 4 people who may work *might* get back to me on Facebook. In addition to the 5+ that came back to me in the mail (and had to re-send), at least 4 people did not receive their invitations (I have a few extras, so I will give them the invites then if they wish to keep one).

PennyBlossom2311 · September 2014

We had 100% attendance and only about 25% RSVP'd. Many people felt that since they were close to us and we knew they were coming it wasn't necessary for them to send the RSVP back. My bridesmaids didn't send it back and neither did DH parents. It was pretty frustrating and felt like a huge waste of money to even have them. We ended up calling everyone to confirm they booked with the hotel since it was an OOT wedding.

[Deleted User] · September 2014

PennyBlossom2311 said:

We had 100% attendance and only about 25% RSVP'd. Many people felt that since they were close to us and we knew they were coming it wasn't necessary for them to send the RSVP back. My bridesmaids didn't send it back and neither did DH parents. It was pretty frustrating and felt like a huge waste of money to even have them. We ended up calling everyone to confirm they booked with the hotel since it was an OOT wedding.

WOW, 100% attendance for an OOT wedding?! Most of my guests are in town, but our attendance rate is looking like less than 2/3, though 10 people have still not responded (about 10 days prior to the wedding).

brideofginger · September 2014

We've had about half of our RSVPs come in. Our "RSVP deadline" is Saturday, which is two weeks before the wedding, so we haven't started running people down yet. The ones missing are mostly from my FI's family. My MIL thinks I'm crazy for being irritable and people not RSVPing.

abbyj700 · September 2014

We just sent out our invites last week - and we already have a 3rd back! I hope the trend continues! I know the few I'm going to have to call - it's just the writing on the wall - but so far people are impressing us!

And I literally think of the 3rd, only 4 guests can't come and it's all people we expected not to be able to.

cosenti7 · September 2014

Our RSVP date was Saturday and we heard from about 85%, which I guess is pretty good! I'm going to wait to reach out to the 30 people we have yet to hear from, probably until Wednesday in case people mailed some on the RSVP date.

PennyBlossom2311 · September 2014

@Angelaandyitzy - sorry, been off for a bit. We had a really small wedding and pretty much invited only invited family and our wedding party so we had a really good idea of who was coming months before we sent the invites. Since it was during the summer, most family used it as a summer vacation to see the rest of the family. It was a pain in the butt though, when people decided they didn't need to send RSVP's.

theartistformerlyknownas · September 2014

Out of 135 invitations sent, we had to call about 10 households. The week of the wedding, 2 couples and one family of 5 changed their minds, then 3 people showed up without their plus-one and a family of 4 no-showed.

jenijoyk · September 2014

Our RSVP deadline was last week - 4 weeks out from the wedding. Early, I know, but I have to put in our table and chairs order this weekend.

As of the RSVP deadline we were still missing about 20 households (we invited about 100 households I think). By this past wednesday, 10 had trickled in and we were still missing 10. We started sending texts and emails to the delinquents on Wednesday night, and heard from everyone almost right away except for 2 couples.

PrettyGirlLost · September 2014

Angelaandyitzi said:

Gosh, it seems like my caterer is the only one that required the count more than a week in advance (2+ weeks even). One week in advance would have been SO much better since I have several people are unsure about their work schedule so far ahead of time.

I had to give my count to the caterer and write them a check today. I still had 4 people who were unsure about their work schedules, and 6 people who I'm just not able to get a hold of at all. I had 95 yeses (152 invited), so I just told them 100, though I'm probably paying for people who won't come, which is lame.

Still no additional RSVP cards since prior to the deadline. I definitely don't expect any more at this point, though the 4 people who may work *might* get back to me on Facebook. In addition to the 5+ that came back to me in the mail (and had to re-send), at least 4 people did not receive their invitations (I have a few extras, so I will give them the invites then if they wish to keep one).

Nope, my wedding is 10.18 and my venue wants the final head count on 10.4

Our RSVP deadline is 10.1 and so far we have had 82% respond back, and 69% RSVP'd as yes.

rm17 · September 2014

I too had that weird, 'I dunno if I'm working,' thing. Like we sent the invitations months ago. Most of them work in retail. Half of the guests didn't reply, then when I asked they said, 'I'll be there for sure if I don't have to work.' No my friend, this is for a head count. It's not a birthday party. You're either there or you're not.

huskypuppy14 · September 2014

rm17 said:

I too had that weird, 'I dunno if I'm working,' thing. Like we sent the invitations months ago. Most of them work in retail. Half of the guests didn't reply, then when I asked they said, 'I'll be there for sure if I don't have to work.' No my friend, this is for a head count. It's not a birthday party. You're either there or you're not.

They didn't reply because they didn't know if they had to work or not. You sent the invitations months ago, how many months before your wedding? If they don't know if they have to work, then sending it months before isn't going to help them.

If someone doesn't know if they can come 2 weeks before the wedding, then you can get annoyed. Not months before.

beethery · September 2014

rm17 said:

I too had that weird, 'I dunno if I'm working,' thing. Like we sent the invitations months ago. Most of them work in retail. Half of the guests didn't reply, then when I asked they said, 'I'll be there for sure if I don't have to work.' No my friend, this is for a head count. It's not a birthday party. You're either there or you're not.

Yeah, you didn't need to send those out that early.

simplyelise · September 2014

Wedding is 10/18. We sent invites a bit early in August. RSVP deadline was 9/26 and out of about 110 households sent to, we were missing 30. We got 4 on 9/27 and 2 yesterday. We started contacting people last night.

As for attendance, we invited 202 people (including "and guests" it was about 227) and right now 150 are coming with 15 possible additions. We had a lot of out of town guests, so it was just a bit lower than our anticipated attendance (and I'm psyched it's smaller!).

related side note: I have 3 adult 2nd cousins who have always been more like 1st cousins in our family. The two girls got married last summer and I attended both weddings. NONE of them sent in an RSVP and even though they've all looked at the messages I sent them on FB, still no response.

[Deleted User] · September 2014

simplyelise said:

Wedding is 10/18. We sent invites a bit early in August. RSVP deadline was 9/26 and out of about 110 households sent to, we were missing 30. We got 4 on 9/27 and 2 yesterday. We started contacting people last night.

As for attendance, we invited 202 people (including "and guests" it was about 227) and right now 150 are coming with 15 possible additions. We had a lot of out of town guests, so it was just a bit lower than our anticipated attendance (and I'm psyched it's smaller!).

related side note: I have 3 adult 2nd cousins who have always been more like 1st cousins in our family. The two girls got married last summer and I attended both weddings. NONE of them sent in an RSVP and even though they've all looked at the messages I sent them on FB, still no response.

No advice for the OP, I just wanted to say that we "promote" in our family too. I have cousins who I feel are brothers and I have 2nd cousins (once removed?) who have been promoted to cousins.

jessica11669 · October 2014

My RSVP deadline was today, I have 4 of 20 Response cards back. UGH. I addressed and stamped them. Its a destination wedding so I already expect most to decline, I'm super fine with that, just send damn cards back already.

moutonrouge · October 2014

Angelaandyitzi said:

PineapplePopsicles said:

goldchocobo said:

I got a decline yesterday with no name on it. Good thing she put a return address sticker on it so I was able to piece together who it was.

Someone (I think it was @lolo883) mentioned numbering your invites and I thought that was an amazing idea, especially if your guest list is on the larger side. I only had 23 invites out there so I didn't bother.

I used a gold sharpie to write the guest's last name in the lower corner of the RSVP card (on the back). No guessing! I wrote them pretty small, and I can't imagine why anyone would be offended at that. But it has saved me a lot of headaches because more than one person has marked their card without writing their names. For common last names, like Smith, I just put R. Smith, or D. Jones. Easy, peasy.

I numbered each one on the back which coordinated with the guest list, but that's the one thing that hasn't gone wrong so far.

I naively didn't do this thinking 'Oh, we have a small guest list( 40 people), and everyone will write their names'. Nope. I've gotten 4 back with names and 10 without any names. Detective work with the postmark and texting photos to who I think it is have matched them all up. Live and learn - if I ever send out response cards again, I'll mark them before they go out.

gunnydiver · October 2014

I am at my RSVP date, today, the 24th.. we had to have a count to the caterer 2 weeks ago, but it can always go up.. we just gave them a low ball number until we got the RSVPs back. As of today, I am missing about 54 of 163 RSVPs. Now, some have responded verbally, but I have started to check in with people who I thought would have sent in the card.... I am scared they didn't get it... My caterer doesn't need a hard number for another week. I already planned on having extra tables/seats, because my FI abhors assigned seating, so I want it to be easy for people to sit together, if they wish.

I am 3 weeks out from the wedding. The OOT guests are an easy guess, but the local folks, I am a little bit "uh, wtf? send me the card!" trying not to go all crazy on them, but at $200 a head, it is kinda a big deal. (and, at the same time, in the scheme of the whole wedding, it isn't but....still.) ahhh... here comes my snarky bride phase... Wine, please.

What was your RSVP rate?

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