This is truly mundane and pointless. My wedding is in three weeks. I knew there would be people who wouldn’t respond by the requested response date. I’m fine with that. What I’m not fine with are the people who still won’t give me an answer now that I’ve specifically contacted them to ask if they are coming or not.
WTF? I don’t care if they come or not–I just need a damn headcount… And now that they’ve been such jackasses, I really hope they DON’T come…
Thoughts? Advice? Your own wedding horror stories?
Uninvite. If they can’t be bothered to take 10 seconds to check a box and drop something in the mail or simply call/email you a yay/nay, they needn’t be bothered any further by having to show up at your wedding and partake of your food and drink.
I’d seriously consider following up and if they don’t say “yes!” immediately, then just say, “Well, we’re sorry that we won’t be seeing you there.” Of course, that risks pushing them to say yes and then no-show.
When I got married, one of my husband’s sisters was initially supposed to be standing up in the wedding. She later backed out; my guess is that this was partially because she rarely got out of bed until late morning and liked to take hours in the bathroom “getting ready,” and it was an 11:00 wedding. (She did show up late, walking in around 20 minutes after we started.) She kept going back and forth about whether her husband and two stepsons would be showing up, and finally (after I risked pissing off the caterer with headcount changes) said yes. They didn’t show. We had a smallish wedding (maybe 90 people) and spent a good amount on food, so I was not happy.
Our RSVP date is in a week, and we’ve had less than 50% reply. About a week or so after (to give time to the mail), I’m suggesting that we contact those we haven’t heard from with a simple, “We’re sorry that we won’t see you at our wedding, but we certainly understand that life gets in the way. Hope to see you sometime during the holidays!” (The last as our wedding will be on Halloween and we’ll be back from the honeymoon just in time for the turkey-presents-binge drinking trifecta circuit.)
When I got married I told everyone (even my grandparents), “If we don’t hear from you you will not be allowed at the reception. You’ll be hanging out outside if you just showed up.”
I was dead serious. We had a small wedding (<25 people) and it was vitally important we got an accurate headcount.
I also told people who kept suggesting things to us (in an annoying way) “I appreciate your advice but unless you’re willing to give us money for this how we’re going to do things.”
My cousin’s wedding was just a couple of weeks ago and shortly after the meal at the reception had been started the staff for the place had rushed over to my uncle (as the father of the bride) and taken him out to the lobby. Then they came out and spoke quietly to the groom who also quickly disappeared.
Turned out three of the groom’s friends had decided to show up unannounced. They hadn’t RSVP’d and when the groom went to track them down before the wedding they had told him they wouldn’t be able to make it. Apparently they either changed their minds that day or something because they came anyway. The groom was embarressed by the whole thing and prepared to send them away but my uncle ended up deciding that since there were a few no-shows and they had extra food and some space at a table to just stick them in a corner.
I think the groom was the most upset about the whole thing, rather than my cousin or uncle.
Can I just say THANK YOU for starting this thread; I almost started one exactly like it last weekend. I coordinate up to four wedding receptions/ceremonies a week at my job and it is completely frustrating when you expect 180 people, as on last Saturday night’s event, and 200 show up. All of the chairs, china, napkins and glassware are rented at significant cost to the bride and groom to provide a lovely sit-down dinner for their friends and family. Exactly where are we supposed to shove an extra twenty guests, and what are they supposed to eat off of…and will there even be enough food? (Keep in mind, we are just the facility…we don’t keep wedding supplies on hand–but we also want our guests to have a flawless event). We do the best we can, but if there are only 195 filets/fish/chicken (counting the overage that the caterer brought to be “safe”) there are still five people who won’t eat and won’t have anything but their fingers to eat with and no table or napkin or chair or glassware to use.
On the other side of the coin, I will never forget my poor family who had an RSVP count of 120 people and 57 DIDN’T SHOW UP!!! She was having a 5 course Lobster and Filet dinner (probably around $60 per person just for food) and that many guests RSVP’d and then decided not to come?
People, Please!!! It only takes a second to reply to the invitation…please do so immediately upon receipt and ease the host’s nerves. Then, if you say you are coming to the event…please show up. If you didn’t RSVP, then it ISN’T okay to crash…believe me…we don’t have a spot for you! :rolleyes:
It doesn’t really affect me any longer (my wedding was eight years ago), but I well and truly hate this shit, too. If you can make it, RSVP yes. If you can’t RSVP no, and stick with either. Ignoring the card and showing up/not showing up as you please on the day of is NOT ACCEPTABLE. Doing the whole, “How many people are we feeding here?” thing is an added stress that a couple does not need at this time.
I’m rolling an idea around in my head - wedding invitations go out with no venues on them, just the time, date, and city. If you RSVP yes, you get the address. If you don’t RSVP at all or RSVP no, no address for you. Or just hire a bouncer for the big event with a confirmed guest list.
This was an annoyance for us too. I think in the end we had to call the people who didn’t RSVP to get an answer. Fortunately, it was only a small portion of our list of invitees.
I agree, send a pleasant little card saying something to the effect of
I am so sorry that you can not be a part of my wedding day, I had so looked forward to you sharing in my happiness. We will all miss seeing you at our ceremony and reception, and wish you well
so they get the clue by four whack that you are not planning on them showing up to the festivities…
I just went through this with my daughter’s wedding. We had a buffet, but we still had to provide a headcount, and we needed to know how many tables to set up, and place cards to prepare. I was amazed at how quickly people responded, but there were a few holdouts, and people who wouldn’t share the name of the person they were bringing…and this is three days before!
At first we said, hey, this is a casual type thing, we don’t need to assign seats…but we did. We didn’t care where people sat after dinner, when half are standing at the bar or milling around. But for dinner, we realized that people left to their own devices might leave one seat empty here and two non-together seats empty there…and we didn’t have room for extra tables to allow such excess. People coming in five minutes too late might find they had to split up their group to find seats, so assigning people to tables of eight was crucial. And not knowing who was coming just made that part of the planning a nightmare.
I feel your pain, dear. My in-laws changed the number of people they were going to have at our wedding approximately a dozen times in the 3 weeks before our wedding. With a 30-person wedding. I was ready to blow a gasket, and finally had to just tell them flat-out “Look, this is the absolute last day for me to give the restaurant a head-count. Anyone who up and decides they’re coming after 5pm will have to sit in the floor and watch everyone else eat, because they won’t have a chair or any food.” And even at that, there was some hemming and hawing through the day.
What I don’t understand is this: it’s a wedding, where you have to dress up a little and buy a gift and all like that, not a barbecue where you can swing by just as you are if nothing more fun pops up. And honestly, if you would only go to someone’s wedding if nothing more fun comes along, you don’t have an business being there anyway.
Replying to an RSVP is usually a yes, not replying is always a no, simple. I always feel oblicated to let you know I’m coming, if I don’t plan to attend I may or may not respond assuming you will take that as a no.
I think it’s odd that people who are old enough to be invited to a wedding via their own invitation (not with their parents) aren’t yet clued in to the fact that in general, a wedding reception is the type of party that needs a head count. Maybe I have some special knowledge because I worked in catering from 16-18 and helped plan my best friend’s wedding at 20…but surely there aren’t a bunch of clueless teenagers being invited to all of these weddings. They must have at least been to a wedding reception before - even if it was with their parents.
They can’t put the idea that everyone got a seat and a hand-delivered plate of food when they went to cousin Jane’s wedding in 1988, and this might take some pre-planning?
I forgot to RSVP for a wedding once. It just slipped my mind. The bride’s mom called me (I did not know the mom, I barely knew the bride) and I was mortified that this faux pax even took place, so I always RSVP right on time now.
KSO do you have people working on the wedding with you? Like a one of your moms or a very nice maid of honor? I think someone needs to call all of the no-answers, like a business call, and get a firm yes or no.
I think that is much too subtle. The clueless will take that as nothing more than an invitation to show up unannounced. “She said she was so SAD we weren’t going to be there! We better go”
I like that idea, too. Maybe the people who don’t bother to RSVP haven’t been involved in planning or paying for a wedding, and have no idea how unbelievably expensive the meals and venues can get, and how absolutely critical it is to get an accurate head count.
I regret to inform you that you are 100% wrong. RSVPs must be responded to in the positive or the negative - not responding means any combination of the options below:
You’re not coming.
Your invitation got lost in the mail.
You plan to attend, but haven’t got around to responding yet.
You plan to attend if you can get that hot chick to come with you.
You plan to attend if nothing better shows up for that day.
Someone planning and paying for a wedding (or any other formal event) needs to know which of these options you are planning to pull on them.
My husband is from a large family with more first cousins than I have living relatives. One cousin hosted a lavish party for her daughter’s bat mitzvah. She told me later that I was the only one out of all the cousins and their spouses who mailed back the response card. I was baffled. It wasn’t a backyard barbecue. She said she had to call everyone and they all assumed she would assume they were attending.
I’m sorry for your troubles and hope all of you who are awaiting responses have lovely weddings.
