Rƒ©pondez S’il Vous Plait
March 19th, 2007 @ 3:30 pm by Mrs. Plumeria
No, I don’t know even a shred of French, but my cousin does, and she expanded the normal abbreviation in the subject title of her RSVP email. Yep, that’s right — an RSVP email!
I think, while it may be considered a wedding faux pas (I’m busting out all the French I know in one post! 
), including an email option on the RSVP card was one of the best choices Mr. Plumeria and I made, simply for the convenience of our guests, and subsequently, for ourselves! We are just starting to send out invitations in “waves” to our hundreds of guests, and so far I’ve received over ten replies, both accepting and declining with regrets, over email (a common comment is that they don’t want to tear the RSVP card off because they think it’s pretty! Oh be still my heart. Hahaha!).
Why did we choose to include an email option and risk wagging the tongues of etiquette experts? Personal experience. Even as a bride myself, I am awful with RSVP cards - I’ll get the invitation in the mail and before I realize it, the RSVP date has passed and I still have the cute little postcard in my hands. So, for others whose minds seem to let RSVP dates slip by, much to the chagrin of the waiting bride-to-be, we tacked on an email option so people could technically wait until the RSVP deadline to remember suddenly and send an instant reply. What we’ve been pleasantly surprised by, though, is that the email RSVP definitely speeds things up, and not only with the guests around our age - parents’ friends and relatives are all responding happily over the ‘net.
Anyone else do this and proud of it?
Image via Google images.
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24 Responses to “Rƒ©pondez S’il Vous Plait”
We’ve gone completely online RSVP. Guests will have to RSVP through our wedding website. We don’t have response cards in our invites. We haven’t even sent our invites out yet and we have people responding online! We know our group. We know that they are bad with mail, but they are all wired enough to get online and go to our website to RSVP. It’s great. We ended up with a nice, clean invite; all the info people will ever need is on the site; and wedshare.com keeps a nice tidy database of all the responses and meal choices! I don’t care about wedding etiquette experts anymore…I’m doing what I want!
–Martha cringes—
in this day and age, email rsvps just make more sense. i’m waaaay more likely to send in an email response too. etiquette be damned!
This is a GREAT idea! Giving both choices of RSVP will cater to my internet-savvy friends and my how-do-you-turn-this-computer-thing-on relatives! Brilliant!
did you put stamps on your rsvp postcards anyway?
I’m sooo doing email rsvp too! When you think about it..it’s the most convenient and sooo suitable for our generation! And i agree, when I receive an invite that i have to rsvp via mail…I’m so lazy and usually end up mailing it back late! so yeah..NO FAUX PAS! It’s a DO!!!ahhaha
We will do both. I think my great-uncles and aunts would have a hard time responding via email and may be turned off by the whole idea. We did set up a seperate email account for wedding purposes right after we got engaged so we have that all ready to go.
Hi e! I put stamps (at least I hope I or someone else who helped to work on the invites did) on the postcard for invites with recipients that were far away or which were sent through the mail in the first place.
For the majority of the invitations, which were for guests we see very often and which were passed off by hand/in person, we did not include the postage, b/c most likely they will hand it back to us in person — plus there’s the email RSVP option. Another faux pas? Oh well. We figured that as long as there was some sort response method that did not obligate our guests to spend money, it should be fine.
oooooh….handing out invites in person? that’s brilliant. you are, again, so smart!
That’s wonderful! I considered doing this but then realized that it would give my Emily Post-esque grandmother a heart attack to see an email address on our invitation. Needless to say, I wish I had done it when I was calling all those late RSVPers!
It was an afterthought for us to put an email on our reply card. But because of it, we’ve had several early replies which we’re very happy about it (for planning purposes). We were going to use weddingtracker.com to host an online RSVP but it got so complicated with codes, etc. Thank goodness we included an email - instant gratification!
Etiquette be damned is right - as far as I’m concerned, the purpose of having guests RSVP is so that YOU know how many people to plan for! It’s becoming so uncommon for people in their twenties or younger to use snail mail that a posted RSVP card is just a chore and often gets forgotten or comes in too late. So I’m actually going to give my guests 4 options:
1 - RSVP card by snail mail
2 - email
3 - RSVP on our wedding website online
4 - phone
For the person who asked about putting postage on RSVP envelopes if you’re giving guests the option of email RSVP, here’s what we’re doing. We know our guests well and I can guess who will RSVP with the mailed cards. (They are all our guests on my mom’s side of the family who live overseas in England and are over the age of 60, plus a couple of guests who don’t have the Internet) Those people are getting postage stamps, everyone else is not! If they REALLY want to mail it in, I think most of them can cover the 50 cent cost. Yup, I know this is a faux pas but that’s what we’re doing.
Love it! LOL, we’ll be handing out most invites in person, too, and I totally did not even think about having email/online RSVPs or foregoeing (eh, is that a word?) a stamp on those that will most likely be handed back. You’re a genius.
I going to have to disagree with the previous posts and say that I find emailing a response a little too informal for a wedding. If I got a wedding invite with an email RSVP I really would be shocked. Besides, the handwritten notes on my RSVPs are something that I really treasure.
Hi nan!
I know there are others (and probably some on our guest list) who share the same sentiment, and I hope they will still use the RSVP postcard we included as a response option and not mind the line on it that reads, “… or email a response to…” But for us, with a guest list that tops 400, offering both was the really the way to go and I truly think it will save our sanity as the day gets closer.
Orrrr if you could not put a stamp and put your address on both sides of the rsvp and either way it will be sent back to you.
the best thing is that we’re not inviting the ettiquette police. so hey, they wouldn’t know. lol. my best friend is adding this as an option to her invites and i quite like it. it’s easier to keep track of. i’m actually more likely to email an rsvp because it’s easier and faster. and i don’t have to bother with going to the mailbox.
our guests rsvp’d via our wedding website. it was password protected and even included a questionnaire about food allergies and dietary restrictions.
it was so convenient! and no one thought twice about it. Like Tea says, we weren’t inviting the ettiquette police.
We got 95% of our RSVP’s by e-mail (including the online RSVP at our weddingchannel website). No regrets. E-mail was very easy to organize, instant, and I could even send a broad message (using BCC!) reminding guests to RSVP, provide meal selections, etc.
I was hoping to get at least ONE formal handwritten note on lovely stationery (a la Miss Manners) — but not a one nowadays! Bummer.
Being the programmer dork that I am, I went a step further and built my own RSVP site… and didn’t send any cards to send back! I sent a cute little card telling them the URL of the site with a unique “RSVP Code” for them to enter at the site. I thought it would be easy for these people and get them to respond quick… but nope! I didn’t get a reply for a couple weeks… *sigh* Well the app was fun to build
yup RSVP via website! i love it.
the website is really nice and informative so it should be helpful for guests who visit and its saving on postage etc. no options for us- just website. we are slipping in a postcard for about 4 people who dont have internet though.
Yikes, who doesn’t have the internet??? 
We are having four options as well. 1) RSVP card, 2) Email, 3) Wedding Website, 4) Phone
We will be mailing all or our invites and including postage on all RSVP cards.
Can someone post a sample of their reply card wording, with email option? I think this is a great idea, but will still need to send standard cards since many of our older relatives are not online. I just am not sure how to word this. Thanks!
Mrs. Plumeria, San Francisco
Age and Occupation in 06: 22, Graphic Designer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, High School Teacher
Engagement Date: December 30, 2005
Wedding Date: May 12, 2007
Venue: Hotel Ballroom
About Me: I love all things artsy and unique, and it has become a passion of mine to incorporate these attributes into my wedding (and become DIY royalty in the process). Other than dreaming up projects for the wedding, my latest hobbies include working on my computer, playing with my cute pet bunny, or shopping at Target/Barnes and Noble with my fiance.
ooo~ me! except we used “the knots” on-line system at first and then it had horrible bugs and was inaccurate. so yeahhh we set up a seperate email account for wedding related stuff and had people reply that way.
it was great! and saved us some money! ^_^