Apologies for the long post in advance! I’m getting married abroad in October this year and am starting to worry about RSVPs and not hitting minimum numbers for the venue.
Me and my partner got engaged in April 2023 and from that point always said we wanted to get married abroad and made this clear to friends and family from the start - we would include them in information about venue searching and what packages included etc.
We chose our venue in June 2024 and sent save the dates in Aug 2024, during this time having discussions and talking with our guests about potential costs (as we are aware we’re asking a lot of people). We sent invites out in Nov 2024 with an RSVP deadline of May 2025, as that’s what venue required, with in about a week we had 50% of our RSVPs then nothing. We’ve heard through family that some guests can’t afford it, which is understandable, but they haven’t told us that. My OH mum suggested we pull forward our RSVP deadline so that if people can’t come we can invite guests who didn’t make it to original invite list (we had maximum numbers). Beginning of Jan we sent a message to everyone who hasn’t RSVP’d saying we needed to bring the date forward to mid Feb and sorry for the inconvenience. We are yet to have one reply, or even an acknowledgment of this message being sent, though we can see people have read the message (WhatsApp). FYI we made a wedding website for people to RSVP so it could include details of dietary requirements etc, but we haven’t even had any texts/calls about it, so it’s not like it’s overly difficult to RSVP.
My question would be, should I chase again before the new February deadline?
I’ve seen a lot of discussion online about whether it is rude or not to send a message to guests who’ve missed the RSVP deadline to let them know they are no longer able to attend the wedding. I would like to do this as I need a definitive answer as our venue includes accommodation for all guests, so I can’t invite new guests and then the original guests who didn’t RSVP show up and expect a room! So how do I word this message so it doesn’t come across as rude!?