The Great RSVP Wait

My RSVP deadline is 4th june, i have 90% of RSVP's back now all my OH's family have responded but im waiting on a few from my own family if i do not recieve them by the 4th i shall start the phone calls. Its so annoying i posted my invited in april and didnt get one back until mid may... All but one are coming, try not to think about it much ha

We're waiting on about 4 and the deadline was 23rd May, they're on oh's side so need to get him to chase them! I've got some people to bump up and no invitations left so I've bought some cheap ones and need to get those out at the weekend.

We sent ours out middle of this month (mainly due to all of OH family having to travel so it gives them time to arrange things) as we get married in October (as you know). We left an RSPV date of 01.08.15 which gives people 2 months now to reply. We have had about 20% back however a lot of people letting us know they have them but not letting us know if they are coming or not which is super annoying.

Its exciting but a lot like waiting for paint to dry. Haha!

My deadline is in 2 days time, and we're waiting on 9 more...

somehow i don't think i'll be coming home to 4/5 through the letter box both today and tomorrow. So frustrating, spend a whole month making invites just for people to not bother.

Haha I have the problem of people letting me know they have the invite but not actually replying.

If it was me receiving an invite, I would have replied pretty much straight away! :-p

Thats exactly what I do! Some people who are the worst are other married couples! They've been through the stress but are now not letting us know! You would have thought that they would be the first ha

Our deadline passed and we didn't get any response whatsoever from 5 different couples (presuming they are not coming) and an additional 2 couples didn't return theirs but did at least respond to my email chasing them up - to say they are not coming. I think it's incredibly rude to not even bother sending the RSVP to say you can't make it considering I handmade all the invites, the RSVP was an easy to use piece of card with one box to tick and a pre-stamped and addressed envelope with it!

It was very exciting getting the responses back from everyone else who (for those attending) returned them all back within the first couple of weeks of receiving them.

I'll join you with the wait :-) Have a few outstanding for our evening, but I don't mind so much about whether we hear to be honest (we have the reception at home so any leftover food can be eaten the next day and alcohol can just be consumed anytime in the future). I put the deadline on our day invites for 1st July but so regret this now - Only 2 of my OH's family have replied (even though there was an RSVP card included, they only had to tick the box and post it GRRRRRR). Its annoying because we only have 20 spaces for the day and his family is bigger than mine (we can't recycle the spaces if they don't tell us, at this rate we wont have any guests pffft) ARRRRGGGHHHH :-)

Yes me! We sent ours about 2 weeks ago - with the option to reply online via a wedding website, so guests can RSVP, choose their menu options and request hotel room to stay over etc...

We have had approx 20% back, all but one is from people we knew were definitely attending.

But RSVP deadline not till mid July so guessing people think they have ages to do it, I had hoped the website thing would speed up the process tho as eradicates the need to remember to post a RSVP card (which we also included along with envelope)

I do know what you mean about being anxious/excited to get replies tho ?

Ive had the opposite experience of most people here it seems - which Im certainly not going to complain about!

We put an RSVP date in September on our invites that we sent about 2 weeks ago, and most people have already responded! I think we only actually have 3 outstanding now out of around 60! We didnt put RSVP cards in (I didnt know we were supposed to!!) and just put our address and my phone number - got our first RSVP within 5 mins of the invite landing on someones door mat!

I've read on this or some other forum a similar topic. It seems most of people have rather not the best experience with receiving RSVPs. Don't get frustrated, maybe start asking your guests (if you're in touch with them, email or phone) if they remember about the deadline? That's what I am going to do when my time comes. I wouldn't like to cope with this extra stress :/

I hope it all works well for you.

It's like watching paint dry, isn't it?

I think in an ideal world, I'd send the invites, and the next week I'd receive all the RSVPs! :-D

Then I could work out final costs, make up the correct number of favours and do the table plan. All these things we can't do before we have our numbers! :-(

I sent out the first invites on the 5th May and got the first rsvp the following day. Our invites have gone out gradually and the final ones went last week. Our deadline is 12th June. I deliberately set a short response time in the hope people wouldn't put it to one side and forget. I've had nearly a quarter back so far.

I've told OH he has 1 week after the deadline to chase any non responders on his side. I won't be chasing. OH says neither will he.

We will do the table plan and anyone who replies after that will simply be told they are too late we've submitted the details to the caterer but they are welcome to come after the meal if they like.

I really can't be doing with chasing people, they have cards with tick boxes (I even wrote their names on the individual rsvps) or the option of a website. That's more than enough hand holding.

Wow you really did hand hold yours.

It’s crazy how people just put it to one side leaving the bride and groom to chase, like they don’t have enough to do already!

I just want to know in case we have to move people up to the day (some family from dubai were unsure if they could get time off work) plus me and OH have a list of people we want to invite if there’s space in the evening so getting responses from people is critical as others could lose out because numbers were tight and people didn’t RSPV and didn’t show.

Ours are due back on Monday and still waiting on 16! It's so frustrating, we even put them in a stamped addressed envelope, all they had to do was tick a box and stick it in the post!

I was so determined that we weren't going to chase people, but we've had 3 RSVPs back with no names on so now I'll have to phone everyone on Monday who hasn't responded to figure out who they are from!

Our deadline is today and we're still waiting for 16 people to respond, mostly my family. Will have to start chasing this evening and am not looking forward to it. The sooner we get this bit over with the better. I've had people losing invites and also trying to add plus 1s all over the place! ?

It was because of other threads on here saying guests didn't put their names on rsvps or worse put names of people not on the invite on the rsvps that I wrote the names on the rsvp cards.

We aren't having separate evening guests and don't have a reserve list so we don't have that pressure - I can understand those of you who do feeling the need to chase.

^^^ THIS!!

What is with people and this bit seriously! I've had people do it too.

I am pretty envious of you Celticcurl! Really wish the pressure wasn’t there and could just do that.

OH's 18 year old daughter complained to him that her boyfriend wasn't invited and a really good male friend of ours commented to OH that his invite was just for him, no guest. Fortunately OH and I had discussed this and are on the same page. He put them both straight. I think if I hadn't written the names on the rsvps we may well of had a few people added. It would only have been a problem in that I would then have had to spend time contacting them to say NO. I wouldn't have been letting it slide. It is OUR wedding, WE will decide the guest list thank you.

We had something quite the same. I’ve had a few family members ask about boyfriends. I just refused to answer them. OH aunt asked if her eldest could bring his girlfriend and we said no as numbers are tight, however her youngest is going into the army so she said if he doesn’t come can her eldest girlfriend come in her place.

I ignored the message because like you said celticcurl, it’s our wedding and we will decide who comes in place of someone else not them. I know people don’t mean to be rude but if they took a step back and really thought about what they were asking I’m sure they wouldn’t ask.

We must have had the best guests ever! We got all our replies back within deadline, no chasing. We sent out RSVP cards with stamped addressed envelopes so they had no excuse not to.

We have 1 person (OH's cousin) who hasn't even had an invite yet - I've messaged her about 4 times asking for her address etc and she just ignores me? (she is a bit odd anyway but that's just rude!!).

This thread got me thinking.....has anyone ever had someone who didn't RSVP actually turn up on the day, expecting to be seated/fed etc? :-o

I am probably quite hard line. If I was waiting to upgrade evening guests or issue further invites then I would do so as soon as the rsvp deadline had passed. If some of the original guests then replied I would just say 'Oh I'm sorry, because we didn't hear from you we thought you weren't coming. We've invited someone else now but you're welcome to come in the evening'.

We had about 5 people actually reply by the date, so we just called everyone that day and asked them if they were coming. All of them said they were they just forgot to respond! (On the day about 3 people didnt turn up but it wasnt really an issue as we didnt have other guests to 'upgrade' as no extras were invited in the evening.

I've had guests tell me they "might" come...as if that helps whatsoever when informing the caterer of final numbers and working out the seating! They haven't got a bloody clue! Also sent out around 50 evening invitations about three weeks ago and only 2 people have replied. Nobody else has even acknowledged the invite, let alone rsvp'd. Feel really deflated now, and actually quite pissed off. I've received a wedding invite and a save the date over the last couple of weeks and I immediately replied; to me, its a great honour to be invited to someone's special day, and exciting. I guess not everyone feels that way though!

I'm not looking forward to all of this at all! I'm really hoping that having an online RSVP system will help, but I'm not sure it will... but it should, cos you can do it whenever and don't have to leave the house - haha Fingers crossed for everyone awaiting their RSVPs

Yup, this is what we'll be doing. No need to give them ages to reply, they don't need months to find out if they can get time off etc.

I would 100% recommend putting your phon number on the invite/rsvp card if you want an immediate response - most of our guests sent a message to say they were coming when th invite arrived and it was fresh in their mind,nand then quite a few sent rsvp cards a few days later. We sent invites 2 weeks ago, and are now only waiting for 3 replies out of 60!

Our rsvp deadline is the 1st june, and I've had all but 2 responses, although i did post a facebook reminder last week and got most replies that way. Only had 4 declines so far, including family we had to invite but dint actually think would come...but are. Evening invites are a different story tho, very few have even acknowledged receiving them. And then you have the ones who turn up randomly at the door cos they "havent received their invitation yet, and you mentioned on ur fb status that all invites have gone out"....... ??

Haha, I love this - awkward?

I'm dreading this bit. We're having a really small wedding so I suspect people won't RSVP because they know we'll know they're already coming, but I still want to send out invites and get replies because I'm a massive hoarder haha