Wedding Blog
Now that I’m trying to do a mock-up of our wedding invitations, I’m a little stumped on the RSVP card. According to ButterCup Kids, you should never include a line reading, “Number of persons attending” because only the people addressed on the invite are invited. Now, a lot of us brides know that sometimes people ignore what should be common courtesy and often add extra guests. So, it seems that couples are starting to add that extra line reading:
” Two seats will be reserved in your honour” or “_______ of __2__ seats will be reserved in your honour.” Sure, while this may be bad etiquette, guests who change the RSVP card or just bring other people with no notice aren’t exactly following the rules, either.
The version I am leaning towards is:
The favour of a reply is requested before October 1, 2007.
_X__ seats have been reserved for you
M___________________
___ accepts with pleasure
___ declines with regret
How are you wording your RSVP cards?
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My feeling is that even if you give people the number they’re supposed to bring - those who were inclined to bring more people before these types of wordings came into vogue will still bring more people who are not invited.
I’m hoping that the majority of people will respect what is on the invitation and that alone. That being said, I’ve actually gone totally off base with the RSVP cards. They are a flip open car that says “The favor of a reply is requested by XXX date” and it comes with the envelope addressed and stamped. This does two things (hopefully) - most people who write a note will sign it “Mary and I will be thrilled to be there, Love, Bob” and it gives guests a chance to write lovely notes if they so wish.
My sister did this and got really thoughtful and nice notes from people who wanted to send them well wishes, as well as tell them if they could come or not.
We were on a really tight budget, as we were paying for the wedding ourselves… so it was important that we didn’t have any “additional” guests added to returned rsvps. We also have a ton of single friends, all who know each other, and all who we didn’t want “finding a date” for our wedding. So… we had 2 different rsvps. For our couples/families we had ” ____ seats have been reserved in your honor” and I hand wrote the number on each rsvp. However, for singles we had “A seat has been reserved in your honor” This was to avoid the odd “1″ written on the blank. Basically it seemed less rude. fyi… we DIY’d so it wasn’t a big deal to make two rsvp’s.
I am so not knowing what to do with our RSVP cards… I know that this is where we are supposed to help you for posting Miss Kiwi, but I have a simillar dilemna - -
My FMIL has decided to maximize her invite list, by ‘deciding’ that her guests aren’t allowed to bring dates (TACKY), and to further complicate things I am having a sit down dinner with arranged seating… I was already trying to come up with a subtle way to ask my guests to write the name of their date on their reply card. Now what should I write “Please include the name of your date, unless of course you are a guest of grooms family in that case no dates allowed” - seriously WHAT is a girl to do???
Okay, I’m done venting 
- I like your RSVP card, it is simple, to the point, and you managed to squeeze in the oh so formal ‘favour’ into the mix… I love the ‘our’ on everything.
i’m doing __ of __ accepts with pleasure/declines with regret
We’re living on the edge–we really did say “number attending,” with a space for each day of events (a friend calls it the wedstravaganza weekend). I’ve had a bridesmaid ask if her boyfriend is invited [okay], and a cousin ask if she can bring her two adult daughters [no, because it's not fair to the other 28 people in the same situation who weren't invited]. But most notably, the one person we all assumed would write in extra guests responded with a one in each box.
The more wedding websites I read, the more lucky I feel that no one’s responded with extra guests. I can see where my cousin was coming from, particularly because we did invite her brother’s young children, but his kids are in elementary school, and hers are in their 20s and married. Big difference.
What about the folks that get extra tacky and bring someone in place of the invited person who can not come? This is my dilema with putting the “_ # of seats have been reserved” line. I feel like people will think they can replaced the invited person(s) with someone else. Argh ! the drama
I too am doing the ___ of ____ . I did make sure I had a majority of the dates names so it would seem a little more personal.
I’m doing exactly what you’re thinking of doing. I didn’t know it was tacky =/ but oh well. The reason I wanted to do it that way is because I want to make sure the family knows that the kids are invited and can bring guests. You know, try to make everything fool proof.
oh gosh. we did __ of __ guests, and now I’m in shock that it is generally considered bad manners. oh well. our guests hopefully understand that we’re both students.
Man, I must say that even if it is bad manners, I really don’t care so much! It’s not that I don’t trust my family/friends, but I don’t want to take any chances!
Honestly girls, I think people don’t really care about what the RSVP thing says- do what you will.
I’m doing:
name(s): ___________________________
# attending: ___ unable to attend: ___
I read somewhere that if you do the “_ of _ seats have been reserved for you” and for example one of the 2 people invited can’t attend… then they’ll feel free to bring whoever they want with them. We have a growing “B” list that we want to be able to invite from if we get any regrets so by doing # attending… if someone rsvp’s for a number larger then we intended then whoever’s list they were on will just make a polite phone call explaining that they were not invited with a guest in the first place.
It works best for us this way. But do whatever works best for you! Good luck.
K, I don’t think it’s tacky at all that your FMIL doesn’t want people bringing dates. I don’t understand why people who would be old enough to be dating aren’t also old enough to attend an event alone, if that’s how they are invited. I would much rather be able to invite more of my single friends (all of whom do know at least one other, if not twenty other, people who will be there) than only be able to invite half of my single friends b/c I have to invite them to bring some random guy they’ve been on two dates with.
I worded mine just as you suggested, but left off the __ seats reserved line. I’m in the minority, but I don’t mind if an invited guest replaces her husbands with a friend or if someone asks me if she can bring a guest. We aren’t too tight on space and we’re already spending out the whazoo, so what’s a few dollars more to make our best friends happy. (Granted, we know every person on our guest lists. They are our guests, not our parents).
Hehehe my invite pics just went up so you can read it there!
But yeah, we just wrote “number attending: ___” and are hoping that no one’s going to write a larger number there than the number of people whose names are on the envelopes. For families, we wrote out eeeeveryone’s names though, and I feel like most people who bring random extras would be their kids, who we’re already inviting. So far no one’s added an extra!
I am writing in the names of the invited guests on the RSVP with a will/will not attend option, i.e. _Susan and Bob_
_ will attend
_ will not attend
I just could not figure out how to deal with the uninvited guest issue without doing it this way. However, I have a small guest list… not sure I’d want to do 200 of these!
We don’t want children at our wedding, however we have a decent amount of single friends to whom we’d like to give the option of bringing a date- without making them feel that they HAVE to bring someone either. So I was thinking that we’d address the invitation to one name, but have a set of “single person” reply cards that say
I will attend alone__
I will attend with a guest__
Name(s)______________
What are your thoughts on this method everyone?
Writing in people’s names for them wouldn’t have worked for us, because already we have two couples where only one is coming; given the choice of “John and Mary will attend” and “John and Mary will not attend,” there’s no right answer.
Petra–thumbs up. We were lucky in that we only guessed wrong on one person’s dating status–for most of the single people, we either knew their date’s name long in advance, or correctly figured they wouldn’t have a date–but if you’re in a situation where you’ve stopped keeping constant track of who your college friends or cousins are dating, your solution seems very reasonable.
the other day, one of our groomsmen’s girlfriend (not our friend) made a comment “it’s messed up that you are not letting so and so bring a guest”.. our friend s had called my fiance and asked if she could bring a guest, and he said it was ok if she was dating someone, however, she is not, so they agreed that she would not bring someone.. and then some girl that we aren’t friends with has the nerve to judge us on the situation! i was so angry..
We sent out RSVP’s similar to what you’re trying to do, because the chapel we’re getting married in is pretty small, so we’re limiting number of invites and not inviting children. Be warned however, because people are writing their children in on the invitations. And then getting really upset when we’re politely calling and explaining the situation. And upset that we “forgot” to invite their children in the first place.
I don’t think it’s rude to invite singles without letting them bring a guest, but I also know from experience that the issue can be confusing for the guests, especially when an rsvp line with “____ number will be attending” is included. People who respond with a “2″ indicating that they will bring a guest may just be unclear about the etiquette–especially young people who haven’t been to many weddings or had to plan their own. I think that clarity is much more important than the alleged (slight) rudeness of writing ___ out of ___ people are invited. I don’t think that most people want to embarrass themselves by bringing unwelcome guests; they may just be confused about what’s “normal” or expected. I think some people think that they are expected to bring a guest to a wedding.
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Mrs. Kiwi, Los Angeles
Age and Occupation in 06: 27, Bookkeeper
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, P.E. Teach/Coach @ private schools in LA
Engagement Date: March 31, 2006
Wedding Date: November 3, 2007
Venue: Radisson Hotel
About Me: I'm a bookkeeper who failed high school algebra. I'm currently living in Los Angeles, literally a street over from where I grew up with Mr. Kiwi, my honey of three years. We have a jumbo mini-dachshund (seriously, he's huuuuge), and we're planning an autumn themed wedding on a shoestring, paid for by ourselves. The wedding date is my late grandma's birthday, I needed her there somehow, and that seemed like the best way for us. I can't believe I'm a Bee! I couldn't be more proud!
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