RSVPeeved

levieenrose

The guest list by far is the worst part of a wedding, right? The making choices about how many people for whom you can provide a pleasurable time? Yes, if I could host all 400+ people in our lives and give them each the time of their life, I would!!

So I am really bummed out that after over a year of wrestling internally over the guest list, finally selecting the people we most want to invite or it is more right to invite, that 1/3 (yes, legitimately 1/3) did not return their RSVPs. We gave them an extra month to respond, even. 

It's not so much that I have to hunt 33 people down, it's that 33 people didn't care enough to even say that they got the invitation.

While surely FI and I are going to be the most excited about this event, you'd think that other people would be happy about the opportunity to see old friends and family at the very least. I know it will pass, but right now I am starting to doubt that I invited the right people, and I am feeling a little hurt be the quantity of RSVP-less guests.  And some of these are people who recently complained about this very thing during their own wedding planning. I've never sent in an RSVP late.

Like I said, I know it will pass. I'll give it a few more days and then start making calls. Just feeling pretty bummed right now that all of our planning for our guests' comfort and enjoyment may only really be appreciated by those in the 2/3 of our invitees who responded and can make it.  

thejucheidea

I think that half of the people we invited actually returned their RSVP cards, and we had even self-addressed and stamped all of them. Half of the half who didn't respond were coming as well, so it was a massive piss-off.

I made the people who wanted to invite certain people call them. All of my guests responded, all of my mom's responded, husband had to call those who didn't respond from his list, husband's mom called all of the ones from his family who didn't RSVP (aka all but two), my dad had to call all of his list who didn't respond. Made it easier, for certain.

NOLABridesmaid

What was the rsvp date on the invite?

levieenrose

@thejucheidea, I'm sorry that happened to you -- 1/2, wow! It feels pretty crappy. I would never send RSVP cards without stamps and not self-addressed, so we were in the same boat there. FI is helping with the calls. I've also learned that eleventh-hour cancellation phone calls are a possibility (well, hey, life does get in the way and I do get that). But now that someone brought that up to me in advance, at least I can prepare for the following outlook: "great, I can spend more time with the guests that are here!" rather than, "ugh, an extra $100 wasted" or feeling unreasonably hurt for myself or on behalf of FI.

@scribe95 and @NOLABridesmaid, I'm not sure why the RSVP date or the extra month matters that much? We did not send out save-the-dates, we sent out the invitations a little less than a month early. It's not like I sent them a year in advance. People who do family reunions, major birthday parties, and especially graduations/ grad parties also know way in advance. I get that some people set this stuff aside, but I am surprised at the quantity (and at the specifics) since I don't do that myself. I get the date on the calendar if nothing else and would at the very least give a call before the response was due. 

That being said, we've been following up with people and just having a response one way or the other makes me feel better about it. :-) The waiting between RSVP date and a reasonable follow-up time was the worst. At least so far, the people who can't come are kind enough to express disappointment and those who can come have apologized for their deliquency.

bananasplit472001

In my opinion those who don't respond within a few weeks of receiving the invite are rude.  How hard can it be to plan for future events?  If people are waiting on things such as work or whatever excuse it is that they have why not just RSVP 'no'?  If they think there may be a conflict theres no reason in giving the host anxiety over getting RSVP's in.  It is not their responsibility to track down the people who can't respond.  It is rude not to let the host know in a timely manner.  If you truly can come after you've RSVPed 'No' let the host know in a reasonable amount of time so that they can prepare for you.  It's always easier to add someone on 2 weeks before than it is to take someone off the list 2 weeks before when things like favors have already been paid for.

hyechica81

we sent out std with wedding website info.

our wedding is at the end of june of this year

we have invites ready to go they just have to be addressed and stamped  invites will go out end of april and rsvp date is june 1st 13 days to track anyone down as they need final counts by the 14th

*Barbie*

levieenrose said:

@scribe95 and @NOLABridesmaid, I'm not sure why the RSVP date or the extra month matters that much? We did not send out save-the-dates, we sent out the invitations a little less than a month early. It's not like I sent them a year in advance. People who do family reunions, major birthday parties, and especially graduations/ grad parties also know way in advance. I get that some people set this stuff aside, but I am surprised at the quantity (and at the specifics) since I don't do that myself. I get the date on the calendar if nothing else and would at the very least give a call before the response was due. 

it's important to understand how much time you gave your guests to RSVP because it could be accounting for the low response rate. if you sent out invites 4 months in advance of the wedding, with an RSVP date one month out, people may be waiting until it gets closer to the deadline to respond. (A lot can change in 3 months, and they probably don't want to have to call to cancel at last minute.) They may also have set aside the invite and forgotten about it. Nothing you can do at this point except follow up with people who didn't respond.