RSVPs and meal options

I agree with the idea of not sending RSVP's to save money - it's been nice getting different cards in the post. We aren't offering a choice of food but we have asked people to let us know if they have any "religious, allergy, vegetarian or other food preferences" and to be honest people aren't always remembering to tell us so for those we know it might be an issue we will have to chase up (mainly people who we think don't eat pork (our main dish) for religious reasons but aren't sure). Our caterer has already said they prepare a few extra veggie dishes just in case peopple change their mind on the say. Could you perhaps say "these are the the two options. If we don't hear from you we will order you X". That way if somebody has a significant dislike of option X it might prompt them to let you know and if you don't hear you have a back up plan that has been clearly stated.

To be honest, from what i've heard, you'll have to chase rsvp's anyway...something im dreading! xxx

We had menu choices for all courses and enclosed a menu on a loose card in our invite for people to tick which option they wanted and include in their RSVP.

We added a note at the bottom to ask people to enclose it with their RSVP so far everyone has

I matched this to the invites but you can do this with any card so shouldn't be too expensive

You will. Very few people seem to grasp the concept that 'rsvp' means 'a reply is required' rather than 'just let us know if you can, or perhaps can't, come' - which will always be the wrong choice to the one you want anyway.

We put in rsvp cards, and stamped addressed reply envelopes so all people literally had to do was write the names of those coming and write if they had any dietary requirements.

Admittedly we sent our invites out quite early with an early rsvp date, but four months after the deadline we still have three not responded. We chased a lot of people who eventually let us know, but one we just couldn't get a reply to via phone, email, facebook, text messages etc so we just took it as a decline and stuff 'em for being rude.

When you make every effort to make it an easy option for people to respond... and they still can't follow a simple request... then personally I think it's no great loss if they can't come because you obviously aren't that important to them in the first place. It's just plain rude and there really is no excuse to chase people more than once (giving them the benefit of the doubt re lost in the post and simple oversights).

Yeah, I think I'm pretty much resided to the fact that we'll be doing lots of chasing anyway, but i think H2B was worried that people would reply with their attendance but forget to let us know their menu choice, so we'd like a way of ensuring they do both without us sending RSVP cards

That's a good idea to put a small line in to say that we would decide for them - 'you'll find out on the day if you don't let us know' kind of thing

I did not have to do that much chasing for my day folk,one phonecall to check one guest and that was it. I am not sure about the night folk,my RSVP deadline is not until 8th of August,i have had 17 back so far.

I did include a little RSVP card and an addressed envelope,i do think it makes people get back to you quicker. It was not very expensive and i did not put stamps on any of them as i am far to tight to do that.

What stupidlamb said is a good idea actually...(still figuring out how to quote..!) let them rsvp as they choose but include a menu card for them to indicate their choices... our invites are homemade Hobbycraft ones so can easily match up some extra card

and let them provide their own stamps!

Its worked well for us, am just trying to see if i have a pic to post for you

I wouldn't bother with stamps if I were you - we put RSVP cards in an addressed envelope with a stamp on into our day and evening invitations and although most people were prompt with replying, we still had people too lazy/rude to bother to reply. Now we're less than a month away I have stopped chasing people up. If they're too rude to even let us know they can't/don't want to come, then we don't really want them there anyway!

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