RSVP stuff

[FutureMrsMRS]

I''m thinking of:

We have limited seating at the reception venue; with this in mind we have reserved ____ seats in your honor.
Number attending: _____ of _____

We KNOW that there will be people who will try to abuse the process so we want to spell it out VERY clearly. Like the cousin with 7 kids, 3 of whom are adults. Your invite does NOT include your 3 adult ''children''!

Also, we have to have final food orders in 30 days prior, which is ~ September 1st. I was thinking of mailing invitations out like the week of July 25th with an RSVP date of August 15th. Is this reasonable?

Thanks all!

 

[jcarlylew]

if you have to have your food so early, i would consider bumping up your invites due another week ahead, at least. i only have 70% of mine back, and our food count is due this friday (and its only 15 days prior to the wedding).

also, i put "we have reservered X in your honor", then i asked for names, and accept/decline. So far i have only had 3 invites "break the rules" but other large parties declined, so that helped.

for those who do ask for more people, i would deal with them till you get most of your invites in. You might (or might not!) wind up with extra room, and then their request might be more reasonable.

 

[Future Mrs. Sterling]

I wouldn''t include the line that says: We have limited seating at the reception venue. If anyone calls to ask why or you hear complaints, then you can let them know that is why at that time.

I would simply say: We have reserved ____ seats in your honor.

Then I would include 2 lines for them to write their names:

M_______________________________________

M_______________________________________

 

[legallyspoiled]

Date: 4/26/2010 12:23:28 PM
Author: Future Mrs. Sterling
I wouldn''t include the line that says: We have limited seating at the reception venue. If anyone calls to ask why or you hear complaints, then you can let them know that is why at that time.


I would simply say: We have reserved ____ seats in your honor.


Then I would include 2 lines for them to write their names:


M_______________________________________


M_______________________________________

I agree with this 100% and it is actually the exact way that I plan on dealing with it.

 

[Haven]

Date: 4/26/2010 12:29:11 PM
Author: legallyspoiled

Date: 4/26/2010 12:23:28 PM
Author: Future Mrs. Sterling
I wouldn''t include the line that says: We have limited seating at the reception venue. If anyone calls to ask why or you hear complaints, then you can let them know that is why at that time.

I would simply say: We have reserved ____ seats in your honor.

Then I would include 2 lines for them to write their names:

M_______________________________________

M_______________________________________

I agree with this 100% and it is actually the exact way that I plan on dealing with it.

Me, too. If people are going to ignore the "We have reserved" line, the additional "We have limited seating line" isn''t likely to stop them, either. It sounds more gracious to just leave it at "We have reserved . . . " and to deal with the odd defector when it comes in.

 

[FutureMrsMRS]

Thanks for the input!

The only issue with the two line for names thing is there ARE larger families where the entire family is invited.

For example, my brother, his wife, their 3 kids. My cousin, her husband, their 4 kids (kids who I''m very close to & spend lots of time with).

But say, my aunt, who has 3 adult daughters in college and one son at home (which I have no real relationship with the girls...). We''re inviting her and son, not the 3 adults.

What about the timing of sending them out & asking for responses? (Thanks jcarley for the suggestion!)

 

[cara]

I think the 25th is fine for mailing IF youve done save the dates or something so people know this is coming. Not much harm in posting them a week earlier but people don''t need tons of time to sit on the invite if they already know about the wedding. And two weeks should be long enough to chase down the stragglers, but be prepared for people to be absolutely clueless about why you need to know their response so early.

 

[FutureMrsMRS]

Thanks Cara! Std''s are going out this week so essentially about 5 months before the wedding.

 

[caribqueen]

I think your timeline sounds good.

We did this:

The favour of a reply is requested
by the 15th of April

M_____________________________________

We have reserved ______ seats in your honour
______ of ______ will attend
______ unable to attend

The areas that I shaded yellow we wrote in the number of the people in that household that we would allow to attend before we sent it. I think it made things pretty clear and worked well for the most part except for one person who tried to change our "1" to a "2." We caught her though. As for the cousins with kids we didn''t want to have, we got calls about that ahead of time and just dealt with it on a case by case basis.