Wedding Central Forum

I thought I'd come on and see if everyone has the same problem I'm having......people not sending their RSVP card by the due date!!

Our RSVPs are due tomorrow and we still have quite a few to receive....why do people leave things to the last minute or think its ok to RSVP after they are due???

Just needed to come on and vent....and maybe get some comfort in knowing that it happens to everyone

I have been told to not even expect them back, as people just use the old "of course we're coming, wouldn't miss it for the world" crap.

I was chasing everyone for RSVP's for my engagement, which I got really annoyed about, as it wasn't just a BBQ in the backyard I needed numbers to tell the reception place. During my complaining about that, I was told by my sister to "get used to it", as people don't RSVP even though they will be coming.

I wonder if there is any real way to combat this, besides putting something like "if not RSVP'ed by said date, we will assume you are not coming and there will not be a place for you at the reception" although that is pretty bitchy... hahaha.


Sounds like we have some chasing to do.

My RSVP date is it until another 4 weeks away, but I highly expect I'll be needing to call people to chase up whether they're coming or not. It happened for our engagement party.

I have to admit, I'm one of those people who always seem to send the RSVPs back late I don't know why, I just forget all the time! So I suppose I can't complain if I have to chase some guests up.

This happened for our engagement party too; a couple of people had to be called three times before they said, "For goodness sake, we'll be there, sheesh, stop bugging us!". Terribly frustrating as the engagement was at a rather small Greek restaurant which may not have been big enough if everybody had turned up without RSVPing!

I feel your pain!!

We found that we had to chase about a quarter of our guests and most of them were like of course we will be there. Some people think they only need to RSVP i they are not coming.

We will be calling people if they have not RSVPed. I never received the invitation for my friend's engagement party and thought I was not invited until she called and asked if I was coming. Apparently quite a few of her invitations never arrived. Sometimes it is not people being rude or inconsiderate, they might not have received the invitation.

FH and I have made the decision that if people don't RSVP in time then there are no if, buts or maybe they won't be on the list.

The reason for this is, my families are very close on both my mum and dad's side so once one person receives an invite, everyone will be saying "oohh, keep and eye out for yours" etc. My Mum's side is also italian, so if someone doesn't receive an invite (even if i didn't send them one) i'll be sure to hear about it lol

My cousin who was married last year, created her own RSVP card but asked that people RSVP by sending an email or phone/text and that saved them some money and worked really well.

I think every single person experiences someone who doesn't bother RSVPing. It's so frustrating! I hated hearing "I assumed you knew we were coming" I felt like saying "No sweetie, it's too expensive to be making assumptions about people coming".
Just be prepared to chase people up, and come on here to vent lots

Yep RSVP's suck.

Just call them to give them a friendly reminder, or i liked to post stuff on their facebook wall like "Still havent heard from you via RSVP, so i assume you arent coming to the wedding?"

I will admit that I am also horrid at RSVPing!

With my invites, I've put:
"RSVP date is STRICTLY by 25th February, 2011.

That is the cut-off date for numbers at our reception venue.
We will be very sad if we cannot have you join us due to you not letting us
know if you will be attending BY the RSVP date.

We have provided RSVP cards and return envelopes along with your
wedding invitation."

Whether it will work is yet to be seen!

You could also have a wedding website with people able to RSVP on it.

There will always be some people who'll forget to RSVP because not all our guests think about the wedding as much as we do!

We only had to chase up a few because we provided stamped envelopes and made sure the RSVP date was much earlier than the date we had to finalise numbers. This allowed a few people to return them late, and enough time to chase up the few that forgot.

When chasing up people, it was also easiest for us to delegate. We got MIL to chase up any on their side of the family and my mum to chase up any on our side. DH and I spoke to any of our own friends we were waiting on.

I had one whole section of my family not RSVP, I had bought little cards, filled them out for everyone (as much as I could), included envelopes with our address and a stamp, and for some reason it was still too much trouble to just put it in a darn post box. I had my nan say "oh we don't need to send those back do we?"...ummmmm...YEAH YOU DO!!! THATS THE BLOODY POINT!!!!

I think everyone needs a lesson in common courtesy!

so do you think it is best to not bother with the rsvp cards or the stamps on all the envelopes and just put on an email to respond to or a phone number rsvp? I dont want to waste my money! I have set up a "wedding only" email address for us so that I can keep track of all rsvp

cj2011 wrote:

so do you think it is best to not bother with the rsvp cards or the stamps on all the envelopes and just put on an email to respond to or a phone number rsvp? I dont want to waste my money! I have set up a "wedding only" email address for us so that I can keep track of all rsvp

Good question. I liked the formality of paper RSVPs, so that is why I chose that. I also loved getting home and looking in the letterbox to see if any little envelopes had arrived. I would imagine that logistically email/phone would be easier and of course cheaper. And thats also very common. My cousin has actually set up a website for her RSVPs, so you go online and fill in your name and say if you can come or not, which is kinda cool (still waiting for the website to go live so I can see the finished product).

So really it depends if you want paper RSVPs...but I would say that if you are doing paper ones, go the whole way and add envelopes and stamps and addresses, anything to make it easier for people and encourage them to do it. If people have to find an envelope, a stamp, write and address, then they will be less likely to return it.

Hi,

We are only sending out our invitations next week, we've been flood bound up here in CQ and I am sure most people just assume that we know they are coming.

We had to cancel our engagement party because of the floods, we were going to postpone but now we're just concentrating on the wedding. 20wks tomorrow and counting.......................

To be honest it might have something to do with leaving options open. I'm the most indecisive person and I like to leave my options open until its really necessary to say what to do.
FH gets cranky with me when its dinner time and I can't decide what I want hahaha
But in saying this, it is a wedding and nothing should come before a wedding other than maybe a funeral or birth?

KaliyaandBen wrote:

To be honest it might have something to do with leaving options open. I'm the most indecisive person and I like to leave my options open until its really necessary.

I have to point out that it is "really necessary" to have made up your mind by the RSVP by date. It's ok to leave it until that date to make a decision, but there is really no room in polite society to be still "keeping your options open" beyond that date. The RSVP date is given for a reason, when you are still making up your mind beyond that date, then you are an inconvenience to others.

And, I would also suggest that you can't be that close to the couple if you can't make up your mind if you want to go, so maybe it's best to just say that you can't make it. And even if have RSVPed, I'm sure people would understand if you had to pull out because someone died!

Everyone that I invited from my side being family and friends have RSVP'd BUT I am descusted with fh's side of the family .. YES family ... we are still waiting on 6 invitation slips to come back with a total of 21ppl and in every invite i put a self stamped addressed envelope too !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! fh's sister didn't even send the slip, it only just come up in conversation that she isn't planning on coming thats okay though bc I can NOT stand her and i'm glad she isn't coming .... our rsvp due date is today and none of them give a **** ... so if we havn't received their rsvps by monday when the post comes in they will be put down as DECLINED as we are meeting with our function decorator on monday night and need to confirm our numbers.

if the non rsvps show up to the reception they will be turned away and I really couldn't give a **** .... some ppl are just soooo rude nd I have lost ALOT of respect for them all !!!

I think all Brides get frustrated by R.S.V.P's! I received all of my side of the families before R.S.V.P date but the only people we were waiting on was DH's friends from work, so I made him get nasty!
Some people honestly forget so I would just send a reminder text or email or something to be polite!

keluc1 wrote:

KaliyaandBen wrote:

To be honest it might have something to do with leaving options open. I'm the most indecisive person and I like to leave my options open until its really necessary.

I have to point out that it is "really necessary" to have made up your mind by the RSVP by date. It's ok to leave it until that date to make a decision, but there is really no room in polite society to be still "keeping your options open" beyond that date. The RSVP date is given for a reason, when you are still making up your mind beyond that date, then you are an inconvenience to others.

And, I would also suggest that you can't be that close to the couple if you can't make up your mind if you want to go, so maybe it's best to just say that you can't make it. And even if have RSVPed, I'm sure people would understand if you had to pull out because someone died!

Agree completely!!

If I had guests that were deciding whether they were going to come to our wedding or not, and hadn't RSVP'd because they were keeping their options open, I would definitely prefer they didn't come! Weddings rank ahead of all other functions. And as keluc said, if you had to pull out due to death/funeral, I'm sure everyone would understand.

I've actually been pretty lucky with our RSVP cards, nearly all have come back, no one has confirmed by phone/email etc. Hopefully the last few come back in the last week or two.