Mrs. Biscuit, Morgantown, WVAge and Occupation: 24, Dental StudentFiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Chemist at a pharmaceutical companyEngagement Date: April 2010Wedding Date: July 2011Venue: Catholic Church, Lakeview Golf Resort and SpaAbout Me: I'm an engineer who decided to trek back to my hometown three years ago to become skilled in the arts of drilling and filling. I'm engaged to a pretty awesome guy who tests your assorted benzodiazepines by day and home brews by night. Together we have two fur children, Tsali and Tobias N. Fünkat. I'm a lazy perfectionist and eternal sorority girl who enjoys running, crafting, string cheese, good beer, and bad reality TV. We are planning a Big Fat Italian/Sicilian/Polish wedding filled with DIY details and are expecting 300 +/- 50 guests. Our whimsical summer affair is themed "Alice attends the Mad Hatter Vintage Garden Tea Party in a Ballroom. She Thinks That The Venue is Odd for a Vintage Garden Party, but is Tripping on LSD, so She Doesn't Really Care." Yes, I am the Dickens of themes.
Our RSVP deadline has come and went. So far, we have 158 yeas, about 10-12 nays, and close to 140 that have not responded. I know some of those are nos, but we’re still waiting to hear from about 100 people give or take.
We were very benevolent when we began planning. We decided we would invite everyone, so no one was left out. Because of this, we chose the larger (but not as pretty or sunny) ballroom at our venue. It was a sacrifice I was willing to make so that we could have all of our loved ones (not just the first 250) join us.
It’s like the census, guys. Fill it out, mail it back. The return address is already on there. No extra writing necessary. If I can’t implore you to do so with my words, just consider the following warning: Read more…
Mrs. Sparkler, ChicagoAge and Occupation: 27, Communications AficionadoFiance's Age and Occupation: 26, PublisherEngagement Date: July 21, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: Chicago Illuminating CompanyAbout Me: I’m a Southern lady living in the big city of Chicago. Well, lady may be a stretch, but I’m working hard to keep some Virginia charm in our sleek, urban, wedding-palooza! I’m addicted to marathons, not-so-famous bands, Chicago restaurants, and Mark Twain. I cry during SPCA commercials, and I think LOST was the best show to ever hit television. Mr. S and I met at a classy college mixer and, 7 years later, he’s still by my side. He’s the only child, laid back, free spirit... I’m the oldest of five kids, type-A, organizer. It doesn’t work on paper, but we’ve never paid attention to that stuff anyway. Somehow it works. And like they say, sometimes when you know…you just know.
Right now I am feeling completely overwhelmed with the stress of getting our invitations finalized. They need to go out in like, ummm two-and-a-half weeks? And I am stalling the entire printing process because of four little letters:
Why so much stress over one tiny component in our invitation suite? Because I like to think of the RSVP card as an opportunity to inject a little personality, be a little less serious, and give our guests a chance to have some fun too. I always imagined having RSVP cards that allowed space for our guests to leave us a little message:
Ms. Gazelle, Calgary/VancouverAge and Occupation: 32, EngineerFiance's Age and Occupation: 32, Technology AnalystEngagement Date: September 3, 2010Wedding Date: July 2011Venue: Brock House Restaurant, VancouverAbout Me: I am a marathon runner, cyclist, Ironman triathlete and beautiful shoe fiend who also loves kicking back and watching Glee. I grew up a bit of a nomad as I traveled around the world with my family, living everywhere from Australia to England to South America and Indonesia. I finally settled in Calgary a few years ago and met Mr. Gazelle who loves me even though we cheer for different hockey teams. We are planning a bit of a destination wedding in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia and we can’t wait to share the day with our close family and friends.
Mrs. Hyena, College Station, TXAge and Occupation: 23, Marketing SpecialistFiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Aerospace Engineering Grad StudentEngagement Date: January 8, 2010Wedding Date: May 2011Venue: Downtown 202About Me: I'm a Texas girl who met my future hubby in high school, then headed up to Oklahoma for a college education (BOOMER SOONER!) before moving back to the Lone Star State to be with him. I love reading and recycling, Photoshop and reality TV, making lame jokes and then laughing at them, quoting movies, and Mr. Hyena most of all. I'm perpetually early and I like to get things accomplished. When my cat meows at me, I meow back. We're planning a laid-back, unintentionally DIY wedding with a cocktail-party vibe, and can't wait to celebrate our nuptials with our nearest and dearest!
I didn’t get a chance to share our RSVP breakdown with you before the wedding, but since I’m always interested in what percentage of invitees attend weddings, I figured I’d take care of that now.
I chose to break down our list a little differently than just “local” and “not local.” This is because both of our extended families live within four hours of the wedding. While I wouldn’t call them “local,” they are close enough that the majority attended the wedding, and I didn’t want these numbers to skew our numbers for legit out-of-towners.
Mrs. Pain au Chocolat, Wilmington, DEAge and Occupation: 29, RealtorFiance's Age and Occupation: 34, RealtorEngagement Date: November 21, 2009Wedding Date: June 2011Venue: Greenville Country ClubAbout Me: An ENFJ with an artistic streak who loves backgammon, sailing, graphic design, and sleeping in. Travel (near or far), good wine, and tasty food makes my heart sing. I'm a compulsive list-maker who lives to plan and organize. Mr. P and I have lived together for 4 years, all the while renovating our city townhome bit by bit. We're planning a whimsical, Anthropologie-inspired garden wedding in June 2011.
Our final head count is due to our caterer today, but we’re ahead of the game! Because our guests are the kind, responsible sort, they returned their RSVPs promptly. The last of our RSVPs were waiting for us after our Mexico trip. It’s taken me a little while to compose this post because I wanted to supplement the stats with pie charts. That’s right. Pie charts!
The Yays and the Nays: Who’s in
Total # of guests - 101
Yes responses - 85 (not including us)
No responses - 14
Nom nom nom
With such a trim guest list, we were surprised (but understood why) a large group of people couldn’t make it. Part of my extended family would have driven between 15-18 hours to make it to our shindig. Quite a haul! Others wanted to join us and were bummed to decline because of health or work reasons.
Our first draft of the guest list was close to 120, which did not include kids. Which leads me to the first statistical topic! Read more…
Mrs. Jaguar, SydneyAge and Occupation: 27, Primary School TeacherFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, IT ConsultantEngagement Date: August 8, 2009Wedding Date: June 2011Venue: Curzon HallAbout Me: I'm an Australian girl who is a self-proclaimed nerd, loves all things stationery and would be lost without books, music and the internet. Mr. Jaguar and I have been together for the past eight years and he finally popped the question last August. Hurrah! We currently live in Sydney, Australia with our adorable cat who thinks he's a person. We're a couple who likes to multi-task: we've been planning a wedding abroad, a permanent move from London to Sydney, and preparing to build our own home all at the same time. Travelling makes me giddy...as does Mr. Jaguar, of course!
I’m talking about our RSVP breakdown. We’ve chased, we’ve hounded, we’ve extended our response deadline by two weeks and we’re officially done now.
Let me preface this by admitting that we initially wanted a smaller wedding, preferably with 30-40 people, max. Unfortunately, our decision to hold the wedding here in Sydney meant that we had a huge amount of family to invite—so our numbers skyrocketed from there. As for those numbers:
Guests invited: 129
Guests who RSVPed ‘NO’: 37
Guests who mysteriously disappeared & we can’t get in contact with: 2
Guests who RSVPed ‘YES’: 90
Vendors in our number count: 5
Total? 90 guests. (Or 95, if you include our vendors that we’re feeding.)
Mrs. Cinnamon Bun, Calgary, AlbertaAge and Occupation: 26, Stage ManagerFiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Theatre TechnicianEngagement Date: June 22, 2010Wedding Date: June 2011Venue: Calgary Opera CentreAbout Me: I'm a life-long crafter and bookworm living in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies. Some of my loves include Lord of the Rings, Sherlock Holmes, knitting, opera, musicals, Etsy, baking, and of course, Mr. Cinnamon Buns. We're keeping our wedding close to home---the venue isn't very far from our house, and we live within walking distance of 6 bridal salons. I'm using the wedding as an excuse to try out every craft project I possibly can, with the endless help and support of my fiance.
I thought it might be interesting to do a breakdown of our guests to see how many family are coming, how many friends, and where they’re all coming from. Numbers are fun!
Mrs. Jaguar, SydneyAge and Occupation: 27, Primary School TeacherFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, IT ConsultantEngagement Date: August 8, 2009Wedding Date: June 2011Venue: Curzon HallAbout Me: I'm an Australian girl who is a self-proclaimed nerd, loves all things stationery and would be lost without books, music and the internet. Mr. Jaguar and I have been together for the past eight years and he finally popped the question last August. Hurrah! We currently live in Sydney, Australia with our adorable cat who thinks he's a person. We're a couple who likes to multi-task: we've been planning a wedding abroad, a permanent move from London to Sydney, and preparing to build our own home all at the same time. Travelling makes me giddy...as does Mr. Jaguar, of course!
One of the things I knew the least about before becoming engaged was RSVP-ing. I’ve only been to a small handful of weddings in my time and they were mostly small and intimate events, where responding tended to happen in person rather than by card. Being on the other end of the response line has taught me LOADS about etiquette: let’s just say I will never, ever slack off on responding again. Seriously. Waiting around to find out about guest responses really, really sucks.
It doesn’t matter how well you know someone or how many times you gently remind them to send the card back—there will always be slackers. Our cut-off date was May 1st (yep, over a week ago) and we’re still waiting on about twenty-five guests. I’ve started chasing up guests. My family has started chasing up guests. Mr. Jaguar’s family have started chasing up guests. And while we’ve had a few verbal ‘sure, we’ll be there’ and ‘I think so!’ responses, that’s not good enough for me.
Mrs. Lox, BaltimoreAge and Occupation: 33, Government WorkerFiance's Age and Occupation: 35. IT ConsultantEngagement Date: May 8, 2010Wedding Date: May 2011Venue: Vandiver InnAbout Me: I’m an East Coast gal born and bred and a suburban brat turned city rat for the last year. Now Mr. Lox and I enjoy walking all kinds of places, having the coolest things around in our backyard, and especially our garage parking. I love gadgets, toys, Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby ice cream, monkeys, and our insane cats. I’m a blonde by birth and a redhead by choice. I’m that girl in the cubicle farm with all the cool toys and the file cabinet covered in magnetic poetry. I still use smiley faces in my emails, whether people like it or not. This is not the first rodeo for Mr. Lox nor me. And together, we are planning an intimate afternoon wedding on a budget we can afford by ourselves.
Mr. Lox and I finally have the complete set of numbers to give to the venue. So I thought, in the interest of full disclosure, that I would share them here. I’m going to limit our discussion to the adults we invited. As we’ve discussed before, we invited everyone’s children. However, a lot of folks chose to leave the young ones at home, so including the children in our numbers doesn’t give an accurate sense of our acceptance rate. And honestly, I’m pretty pleased with where we landed so I wanted you all to get a solid idea of it.
Here we go!
Total # invited: 70
OOT Guests: 9
“Local” Guests: 61
Total # of Invitations Sent: 40
Mrs. Tartlet, Rochester, MIAge and Occupation: Age & Occupation: 27, Post-Doctoral Research FellowFiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Medical StudentEngagement Date: May 2, 2009Wedding Date: May 2011Venue: The Royal Park HotelAbout Me: I'm an exuberant gal from the Midwest with a penchant for Neuroscience and anything sparkly. I'm not afraid to poke fun at myself, and I'm a believer that given the right pair of shoes, a girl can conquer the world. While an interest in the sciences threw Mr. Tartlet and me together (again, and again, until it finally stuck), we share a love for many things---food, video games, car dancing, food, bad puns, travel, did I mention food?---that ultimately led us to where we are now, less than five months from becoming Mr. and Mrs. We're planning a laid-back, romantic, garden-inspired affair with organic and quirky touches that reflect our love for the unexpected!
There was serious cause for celebration at chez Tartlet last week because our RSVP list is finally complete! Oh, memories *cue hazy flashback*: our save the dates were sent a year before the wedding. We mailed ourinvitations in February, and set our RSVP deadline a month before the wedding. Our guaranteed numbers are due 2 weeks before the wedding, which allowed us 2 weeks to hunt down and conquer any delinquent invitees. I’m a gal who appreciates data sets, so it’s no surprise that I looked for statistics while I was in the throes of weighing how many guests to invite vs. how many to expect. Following in the footsteps of Miss Sloth, here’s the statistical breakdown for our wedding:
Total guests invited: 86; 13 of which were +1s (we gave this option to those who were in long-term relationships or who would otherwise not know anyone else at the wedding)
Ms. Sloth, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 35, Account Manager and Fashion BloggerFiance's Age and Occupation: 30, Design AdminEngagement Date: December 25, 2009Wedding Date: May 2011Venue: Bartram's GardenAbout Me: I'm an internet junkie and music snob with a good eye for a bargain. I couldn't live without thrift store shopping, cheeseburgers, sushi, Coke Zero, websites devoted to silly photos of baby animals, Photoshop, and Mr. Sloth. Speaking of which, he and I are a pair of goofball homebody nerds who love our beagle (the most ridiculously adorable dog EVER) to an embarrassing degree. We're planning a low-key and intimate yet festive and quirky outdoor wedding with DIY details and deeply personal touches, and it's all taking place in the city where we fell in love and call home: Philadelphia.
Mrs. Lioness, AtlantaAge and Occupation: 25, Physical TherapistFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, AttorneyEngagement Date: August 29, 2009Wedding Date: April 2011Venue: Anthony’s Fine DiningAbout Me: I’m a Southern girl with New England roots. I say "wicked" and "y’all" in the same sentence and I like to drink sweet tea with my lobster. Mr. Lion and I are both former Floridians now living in Atlanta, which fortunately is still SEC country...Go Gators! We both love baseball, coffee, traveling, cooking, and playing Words with Friends with each other on our iPhones all day long. I’m very passionate about the things and the people I love, and I tend to plan things with all of my heart...our wedding, of course, is no different! Oh, and also Mr. Lion is a first generation American of Cuban descent. I may look more like Lucy than Ricky, but I’m doing my best to incorporate some Latin elements into our vintage-garden-Southern wedding!
Remember when we invited the president, the pope, and Mickey Mouse to our wedding? And we heard back from both Walt Disney World and Disneyland? Six months later, I had begun to give up hope on the president, when I found this in our mailbox the other day:
Not sure if you can tell by the photo, but the return address is printed via thermography. The text is beautiful and raised. Read more…
Mrs. Elephant, Dallas, TXAge and Occupation: 27, Financial Operations AnalystFiance's Age and Occupation: 27, IT Student/Store ManagerEngagement Date: March 29, 2009Wedding Date: April 2011Venue: The Tribute Golf ClubAbout Me: I'm a Philly native creating roots deep in the heart of Texas. I might be a little obsessed capturing those Kodak moments of anything and everything (mainly on vacations). I've become more of a gamer thanks to Mr. Elephant, who I met online and can't wait to spend the rest of my life with. We are planning a wedding based on our favorite colors, blue and green, with a travel theme for 150 of our closest friends and family. Hopefully our long (2-year) engagement won't kill me!
We all go through it. We send out our invites and then patiently wait every day to check the mail and see those RSVPs come in. At first it’s exciting because you get several cards a day from guests that are so excited to share the day with you. Then the responses go from a flow to a trickle, some days not receiving even one card.
The due date comes and goes, and there are still some slackers that you have yet to hear from. You and your family start making calls, sending emails, texts, and Facebook messages—anything just to get a response. Is it really that hard to put a self addressed and stamped card back in the mail??
Mrs. Eggs Benedict, SeattleAge and Occupation: 29, AttorneyFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, AttorneyEngagement Date: December 5, 2009Wedding Date: February 2011Venue: IslandWoodAbout Me: I'm a Northwest girl who spends my time goofing around with Mr. Eggs Benedict and our dog, hiking, traveling, drinking wine and planning a wedding that will showcase the best of what the Pacific Northwest has to offer. I also love photography, beating Mr. Eggs Bene at Mario Kart, and watching the most ridiculous natural disaster flicks you can think of (seriously, how can you deny the awesomeness that is The Core or 2012?? That's right, you can't). We are planning our weekend wedding adventure at an environmental educational center, and I can't wait for the fun to begin!
When I first thought about using our unconventional RSVP cards, I was a little bit nervous to see how people would respond to them. Would people understand my quirky sense of humor? Would they realize that I was trying to set the tone for the wedding as lighthearted and fun? Or would they just think I was crazy?
Luckily, everyone loved them! And we ended up getting some pretty great responses back. Several people said I should make a graph out of all of the responses, but I thought it would be more fun to show you a few of my favorites.
Like this one, which cracked me up as soon as I pulled it out of the envelope:
Mrs. Cinnamon Bun, Calgary, AlbertaAge and Occupation: 26, Stage ManagerFiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Theatre TechnicianEngagement Date: June 22, 2010Wedding Date: June 2011Venue: Calgary Opera CentreAbout Me: I'm a life-long crafter and bookworm living in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies. Some of my loves include Lord of the Rings, Sherlock Holmes, knitting, opera, musicals, Etsy, baking, and of course, Mr. Cinnamon Buns. We're keeping our wedding close to home---the venue isn't very far from our house, and we live within walking distance of 6 bridal salons. I'm using the wedding as an excuse to try out every craft project I possibly can, with the endless help and support of my fiance.
It’s funny how you can be thinking about one thing in your own little corner of weddingland, and other people can be thinking the same thing at the same time, and you aren’t aware of it!
We want our invites to be fun. You’ve seen some preliminary sketches (more to come on that saga later this week!) so you know we haven’t gone totally formal. We decided that fun options were very “us.” While Googling “Funny RSVP wording” I found this post on the Weddingbee Boards (everything comes back to the ‘bee!). Pay special attention to post #5 by SpaceC06: she posted RSVP options for various themes, ie “Ready for My Close-Up / I’ll Never Work in this Town Again” for a Hollywood or theatre-themed wedding.
It made me wonder… could we figure out cute options that are related to books and reading? We had been hoping to have about 5 or 6 options, a few yeses, a few nos, and at least one “Will express my joy through art on the back of this card.” Neither of us will die if we go with “Joyfully Accept/Regretfully Decline/Regretfully Accept” etc., but it’d be fun to bring the books in yet again.
All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
