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Wedding Etiquette Forum
RSVP Woes
Hello! My wedding is June 21st 2019 (a Friday). Our venue is amazing, but the owners/operators are a little strange. We are supposed to meet in about two weeks, when I'll hand over my list of vendors and the final guest count. I thought it was odd that they wanted a final count two months before the date (seems like the general rule is to RSVP three weeks in advance) but they're a popular, extremely in-demand venue and I didn't want to rock the boat so I didn't bring it up. Because we live in a remote area and the wedding is on a week day, we sent out STDs really early, a month after we got engaged (in December) and sent the invitations out early March with an RSVP deadline of April 7th, which I figured would allow time for any stragglers to come in the mail before we have to meet with the venue. The deadline is in 5 days and we still haven't received responses from over half of the people we invited. I plan to call and check in with everyone who hasn't responded after the deadline has passed, but is this normal? Could the timeline set by our venue be throwing people off? We wanted to keep the guest list small, at about 100 people, but we ended up inviting 177 knowing many wouldn't be able to make the long trip...but only 72 have confirmed they're coming, 12 said they can't make it, and 92 people have yet to say anything! Five of these non-responders are in my own bridal party!! I'm ranting now, but we told our caterer we estimated about 130 and it's in our contract that we can't increase or decrease that number by more than 20%. I'm worried about penalties or them just refusing to cater our reception at all. Do I need to ask my venue for an extension on a getting a final count? Do I break out the B-List? And again - is this low rate of RSVP responses normal??
Re: RSVP Woes
Under no circumstances should you break out the B-list.
Poor RSVP responses are typical.
Just say NO to a B list.
Sending out invitations in March for a June wedding is unexpected. Your guests have a (late) June date in their brain, so thinking about responding in April is going to be a struggle. Spring break has been on their brains, and for some, now Easter or Passover. For others, they may not want to commit to travel plans that early.
You have no choice but to wait until your RSVP deadline. Then you need to wait a few extra days, because many will actually wait until that deadline date to send them back to you. Once those days have passed, you have no choice but to hunt them down (also not unusual). You call, email, and text. You say, "Our RSVP deadline has now passed. We absolutely MUST hear from you by April XX. If we do not hear from you, we must assume you are unable to attend."
You say the last sentence to make it clear that NO seat/meal will be reserved for them. My daughter's best man did not respond. He said, "Obviously, I will be there!" What some don't understand is that their meal choice is what was needed.
You can't incur a cancellation unless it is expressly written in the contract. You CAN be charged for a number of guests as per the contract. However, the venue might allow you to make use of that surplus cost by upgrading your meal choices, appetizers, bar offerings, or even provide a late night snack, rather than force you to just "eat" that additional money.
RSVP's were the bane of both my daughter and son's weddings. One was traditional mail, and the other primarily online responses. Both had to track down stragglers.
Yes, you need to pick up the phone and ask people who haven't RSVP'd yet, annoying, but there's a lot to go around namely the insanely early date for the final count being due.
For other posters - my venue pushed me to the do this too, and I said no. They wanted a final head count 1.5 months before, and I told them I would give them 3 weeks. Everything worked out fine. Don't let your venue push you to being rude to your guests. They also wanted me to lie about the start time on the invite.
Don't contact your guests until the RSVP date has passed.
I'd give the venue your best guess (and definitely push back on their absurd deadline.) Then, you can tweak it a little three weeks before. They're gonna accept your money no matter what. It's your event, not theirs!
I'd push back on your venue at this point too. I'd actually question the practice and solvency of a location that does this. Remember - YOU are paying them here. So while they have their policies and practices you can negotiate.
I'll echo the others that I'd have a hard time being pressed into confirming my attendance for a weekday wedding so early. Let this be a lesson for future event planning that one way to help avoid this frustration is to have a response date deadline that's far closer to the date of the event.
Because, you never know. You don't want to be the bride/groom who assumed a 20% decline rate. Way more than that accepted the invite. And now the venue isn't big enough. Or the caterer can't prepare that many meals. Or the couple can no longer afford to properly host all of those guests.
Forcing people to RSVP so early means you're going to end up with a lot of changes in the last minute. If a lot of people have to cancel, that means you're paying for a lot of plates that won't get made, or if you have a lot of additions, it means paying extra to bump up the catering. While I'm pretty sure the venue is insisting on a ridiculous RSVP for just this purpose, it's not ok.