Clarifying the Invites - Helpful? Rude? Unnecessary?

rcher912

An offhanded comment in another thread got me thinking - 

FI and I are doing a mostly no-kids wedding (only his nieces are invited, after that, no one under 18 (unless I decide to employ the local church kid who plays trumpet during the ceremony, in which case, the family is invited and he would be too)).

I'm planning on addressing the invitations properly, so people know from there who's invited (i.e. "Mr. and Mrs. Joe Smith") but I noticed someone mentioned putting "__/2" on the RSVP card.

1. Is this acceptable? Rude? Helpful to ensure clarity of the envelope?

2. I'm doing invites on a budget, probably VistaPrint, which doesn't seem like I'd be able to account for the different numbers of people invited from each family. Would it be totally tacky to put these in hand-written? (Eeek, writing that out sounds like a yes, but if it's a no, please let me know).

What does TK think? Do my guests need clarification? I'd like to avoid as many awkward "Hey Aunt Suze, I'm sorry but you RSVP'd for 4 and Johnny and Sally weren't invited..." conversations. Which I don't even know how to have (so advice on how to say that would be helpful as well!)

Cookie Pusher

We did "X seats have been reserved in your honor" and filled in the number on our RSVP cards. Even though we indicated on the envelope who was invited, we also know that some people don't pay attention and/or think little Johnny and Susie are invited to every little thing. 

[Deleted User]

Ditto @cookie pusher. My FI and I had talked about doing the _ seats have been reserved in your honor and filling the number in ourselves. 

Inner and outer envelops can be helpful in this case, too. While inner envelopes certainly aren't required, they are another means by which you can explicitly state who is invited. 

Whatever you do though, make sure you do not put anything about "no kids" " or "adults only"  anywhere on your invites OR website. 

It is super rude to state who is not invited. 

You may still have guests who try to add people or who rsvp for their kids. In those cases, a phone call will suffice to address the misunderstanding. 

ETA spelling

AddieCake

I wrote the names in on the RSVP card.

redwoodoriginal

I think etiquette-wise it is okay. I had never seen it on an RSVP card until I got invited to a wedding this summer where the bride so kindly hand wrote __/1 on the RSVP, making sure I knew that my husband wasn't invited... so I immediately associate it with being rude, but in reality I think it's perfectly fine. I actually think putting the "we reserve __ seats in your honor" and filling that in is better than the __/__ added in. 

wrigleyville

AddieCake said:

I wrote the names in on the RSVP card.

I prefer this to "2 seats have been reserved in your honor". If someone's spouse/date can't attend, they'll sometimes assume they can substitute someone else for that second/third/whatever seat. Having names on there makes it crystal clear.

AddieCake

Ironically, I wouldn't care if they substituted someone if their spouse or SO couldn't make it.

Jon+Bec15

My plan is to put the _ seats have been reserved in your honor on our RSVP cards as well. Ours is actually to make sure people realize their children ARE invited, but I think it gets the same idea across as OP is needing. No matter what I put on the envelope to be specific, this will make it even more as to who I am inviting to the wedding.

Glad to see this is etiquette approved!

Cookie Pusher

AddieCake said:

Ironically, I wouldn't care if they substituted someone if their spouse or SO couldn't make it.

This. I planned to host X number of people, and it didn't matter who made up that number. Someone could have brought their hairdresser instead of their husband for all it mattered, as long as they were happy with who they were attending with.

MandyMost

We considered all these options, but ended up not doing it. People wrote in their names and indicated attending or not, and meal choices. It would have been obvious if people were RSVPing for more people than we had invited when we got the responses back, and we would have called them. Out of 150 guests, there were like 85 invitations, and I'd guess at least 30 of those had kids. Not a single one of them RSVP'd with their kids, everyone understood they were not invited. 

rcher912

Thanks, all! This is very helpful!

I would love to have everyone's name on the RSVP card, but that seems a little time-consuming, considering I'd have to write them all. Is that how you did it, @AddieCake? Or was it typed in and printed up that way?

AddieCake

Yes, I wrote them in by hand on the M________________ line.

psiloveyouu

Cookie Pusher said:

We did "X seats have been reserved in your honor" and filled in the number on our RSVP cards. Even though we indicated on the envelope who was invited, we also know that some people don't pay attention and/or think little Johnny and Susie are invited to every little thing. 

Does the "X seats are reserved" go on the invitation or RSVP cards? I'm ordering my invitations sometime within the next month and seriously considering this, as I've had a couple TRULY single friends say they were "looking for a date to bring" and our guest list is very limited due to our venue.

Cookie Pusher

psiloveyouu said:

We did "X seats have been reserved in your honor" and filled in the number on our RSVP cards. Even though we indicated on the envelope who was invited, we also know that some people don't pay attention and/or think little Johnny and Susie are invited to every little thing. 

Does the "X seats are reserved" go on the invitation or RSVP cards? I'm ordering my invitations sometime within the best month and seriously considering this, as I've had a couple TRULY single friends say they were "looking for a date to bring" and our guest list is very limited due to our venue.

On the RSVP card.

psiloveyouu

Cookie Pusher said:

psiloveyouu said:

Cookie Pusher said:

We did "X seats have been reserved in your honor" and filled in the number on our RSVP cards. Even though we indicated on the envelope who was invited, we also know that some people don't pay attention and/or think little Johnny and Susie are invited to every little thing. 

Does the "X seats are reserved" go on the invitation or RSVP cards? I'm ordering my invitations sometime within the best month and seriously considering this, as I've had a couple TRULY single friends say they were "looking for a date to bring" and our guest list is very limited due to our venue.

On the RSVP card.

Thanks for clarifying!

wrigleyville

AddieCake said:

Ironically, I wouldn't care if they substituted someone if their spouse or SO couldn't make it.

Oh, ditto. We had a couple of substitutions at ours. I wrote that for the benefit of any lurkers who might care.

SP29

We had outer and inner envelopes and did the "___ seats have been reserved..." and hand wrote the number in. We probably didn't really need to...