Wedding Blog
OK, not rolling, but we’ve had our first 2 RSVPs. Granted, we knew that these two people would be attending the wedding, but it’s still exciting!
We’ve gotten some amazing feedback on our 50 things poster, and the invitation poster itself. We really liked them both, but weren’t sure that others would see it our way. A few people even said they are going to frame the invitation!
The other bit of feedback we’ve been getting is that people liked that we’re asking for RSVPs via phone and/or email. We wanted to do response cards, but we weren’t sure how to get them into the tube without them being super bent. Also, with postage going up in May, we didn’t want our guests to have to supplement postage we placed on the return envelopes.
Not doing response cards was a hard decision for us.
We didn’t want people to think we were being cheap, but we also were trying to be practical. I’m so glad people are seeing it our way. We’ve made a few alternative choices already - there will be no cake (yeah for cream puffs!), I’m wearing a short and non-white wedding dress, we’ll have a ring bowl (instead of pillow) and I’ll wear yellow shoes. We’re breaking all the rules!
Did you make a decision you weren’t sure people would understand (like forgoing the response cards), only to get support and affirmation of it?
|
Share this post: And the RSVPs Are Rolling In…
I love throwing tradition to the wind! Love it! It makes your wedding so memerable for your guests as well as personalized for what you want. Congrats! 
I am looking forward to hearing more about your dress!
Glad the RSVPs are working out–I’ve dealt with quite a few non-paper RSVPs recently and I don’t think they raise that many eyebrows anymore. The only reason we kept to mailing out paper ones is because I love receiving mail. Yeah.
It’s so exciting to get RSVPs back, isn’t it! I’m glad that your invitations were recieved so well!
we’re not doing response cards either! I hope they’re well received.
Just curious (and also a little worried–our date is 6/27/09)-why did you mail you invites out so early?
@eileen: I travel a lot for work and when I do, I only get about a weeks notice and I lose about a month of my life at a time. I was away from home for over 4 months altogether last year. With Mr. Joey in school and little free time, we decided early that we would do things when we can even if it meant doing them really early. We thought it would be better to be done early than scrambling at the end because I was in Africa for 3 months.
i’m not going to wear a veil, and even though this freaked out my mom and the saleswomen in the bridal boutique, all of my friends are super excited that i’m going to wear a custom-made etsy pink headpiece instead!
i also have the same question as eileen about the timing of your invites. i’m also getting married in august and my wedding coordinator said to send them out 8-9 weeks in advance, which would be end of june for me.
sorry - just saw your response to eileen about the timing. thanks!
I think RSVPing via phone and email is a very nice twist because it’s so easy and people are more inclined to be quickly responsive. Whereas with traditional ones, people (like myself) put it off for some strange reason! My upcoming shower will all be done via E-Vite–now that’s cheap (but more so casual)!
I’m barely following any traditions! No one’s walking me down the aisle, no bouquet or garter toss, no assigned seating for the dinner reception, non-religious ceremony. So far, no one’s freaked out at any of our decisions. Keeping my fingers crossed!
what are your 50 things? do you have a link?
Your wedding is going to be awesome; can’t wait to hear more, especially about the dress!
I would totally frame that invite poster too if I would received it, it is so cool! I’m wearing a shirt dress too, I hope it’s a color, but it may end up being ivory. I was going to wear a red Maggie Sottero gown before our plans changed, and everyone was all for it.
Ii’m still waiting to see the bride here on Weddingbee who does all her invitations and everything electronically:).
I loved your poster invites! They were so unique! I’d definitely frame them! What an awesome keepsake for you and your FI!
I sent out invites that just said the date and location of a destination wedding. Nana showed it to her little bingo buddies and they said “aren’t they going to feed you?”
I just thought it was funny how generations see things differently.
So far my FSMIL loves everything I’ve put together. That feels good! But my mom feels really left out of the planning (I’m planning from Colombia) so she makes snarky comments (on accident I think) about all my decisions. It’s not pleasant, but at least she’s honest.
Cool, cool. Thanks for the reply, Joey. I was just getting super nervous, as we have less than 3 mos to go, & we don’t even HAVE our invites yet. But hey, I’m gonna take your lead & mail the suckers out the minute I have ‘em. Way to thumb your nose @ convention–if we didn’t have so many old-fashioned, conventional folk coming (& a semi-formal event), we wouldn’t do the reply card either. Email only isn’t a great idea (for the more mature guests & technologically challenged), but combined with the option to call, I think it works. Also, love your poster invite idea–super original & cool.
we did away with response cards too. first & foremost because of our very small guest list of people we meet all the time (kinda silly if we meet our best buds and they already said they’re coming but insist on having a response card), and we also wanted to reduce the materials used in our wedding.
i am, however, having an RSVP Google Form sent so that guests can indicate their choice of starter & entree and whether they need transport (we’re hiring a little bus for the afterparty so guests can drink all they want!)
I’m getting married at the end of April (getting so close!), and we did response cards, but we only got about half of them back. So we’re going to have to make a bunch of phone calls anyway. I really like your idea–the posters are so unique and gorgeous!
Also, I know I’ve experienced this and so have a couple of my friends getting married around the same time, but due to the economy a lot of people have been dropping out at the last minute. It may be really good that you sent out the invites so early so you have a lot more time to see how the responses are. I wouldn’t care in my case, but our venue and its in-house caterer require us to pay for a minimum number of people, which we easily expected to make but now are not sure we will. We did have a lot of out-of-town guests, though, so maybe others won’t experience the same thing.
@mrspaetz - thans for metnioning Google forms ~ I was unaware of them and will definitely be checking them out, as our various ‘questions’ were the only reason I was going to send paper RSVP’! (well that, and I like getting mail too!)
im thinking about doing the rsvp by phone/email/website as well…what company did you go with? or are people just emailing your own email address? i have seen some websites where you have to pay a fee based on the number of invitees!
any suggestions?
Has anyone used http://www.pingg.com? It looks really intriguing to me, sort of the Etsy of online invitations….
I love all the non-traditional points of your wedding! We are traveling down that road also and loving it!
| Visit our sister sites | Project Wedding Wedding Songs |
eHarmony Advice Dating Advice |
JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar |
Fertile Thoughts Infertility Support |
Mrs. Joey, Seattle
Age and Occupation: 28, Project Administrator for Public Health NGO
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 30, High School History Teacher
Engagement Date: June 24, 2008
Wedding Date: August 2009
Venue: Eastside Catholic Chapel and Lake Union Cafe
About Me: I'm a Seattle girl through and through except for the fact that I don't drink coffee. I love my job most of the time because I get to travel and work with brilliant people who are trying to prevent Malaria. I love DIY projects of all sorts, cooking, and watching sports. I'd wear anything at Anthropologie and could spend all day on Etsy. I love to travel but shouldn't because I always get myself into unbelievable situations!
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 |
Latest Gallery Pics