So we’re having some issues deciding how many people to invite where we get the hall full…but NOT go over the max. We have a guest list…and then a back-up guest list.
Wedding beginning of April. Originally, I was thinking of doing March 1 as the RSVP date. My hope was that people will reply early enough so if I have several “empty spots”…I can invite my back-up guests. BUT that will be an issue if I’m giving someone an invite at the end of Feb. or even the 1st week of March since RSVP date will be printed on the card.
Someone gave me the idea that instead of having the date printed…I should leave it blank and manually write it in. She said she did that for her wedding and has seen it on 2 other occassions. I don’t recall ever seeing this…at least not off the top of my head.
it's my experience that desis RSVP in negative but show up anyway...or vice versa. that even outs! desis still do NOT give due importance to the idea of RSVP. THey take it very lightly.
That's exactly the issue we had for my brother's wedding. I would say leave the RSVP date off. They're going to ignore it anyway. I would instead just start calling people a couple weeks later.
If you think about the way it's done traditionally, the parents go to the house of the invitees and formally extend an invitation, and the invitees formally reply, it makes sense why desis don't think this way. I noticed that even though my cousins put RSVPs on their invites, my aunts called anyway, to confirm, so I have to assume that a lot of ppl didn't respond to the card or even the e-mail. I think Sahar's advice is good, leave off the RSVP date and call to confirm.
it depends on your guest list and how large it is; writing the date on 150 response cards can get annoying pretty quickly. if most of your guests are desi but have lived in th us long enough, they will be familiar with the rsvp concept. i would send out the cards without a date as sahar said, just saying "the favor of a reply is requested". you will still have to ring a few guests but in my experience, even if only half the guests rsvp, its still better than calling up every single guest.
Thanks for the responses but I think I may not have worded my original question properly.
When I say leave the "date off"....I meant not get it printed and write it in manually. There will be a date either way. So far we're sending out 81 invites guaranteed....everyone gets a +1 and approx. 80% of the people are married or engaged (81x2 = 162 people invited). But lets say that 120 people RSVP....I would like to be able to add 20-30 people and bump the # to 150.
Keep in mind that half our guests are non-desi.....and even the desis are around our age and 90% of the desis are doctors (educated crowd that does follow "social norm" for the most part). There will be no "uncles" and "aunties"...ALL guests are either our friends or co-workers.
If I get March 1 actually printed on all the cards....and let's say by last week of February....I have enough spots left to be able to invite people from our "back up" list.....I don't really want to give them a card with a RSVP date of a week or a few days away. The person who gave me the idea last night suggested that I keep the date blank from the printer. She suggested that on the initial invitations being mailed out (most likely by 3rd week of January).....I manually write in February 20 or so as the RSVP date. Of course....call/e-mail people who don't respond by then. And if I have spots left for "back up" list guests by Feb. 20.....then I can easily send out invites to those guest and manually write in March 15 or something on their invites.
So I'm wondering is it tacky for me to write in the RSVP date manually? I personally have not seen this being done.
I just don't like the idea of handwriting it on a printed card. It's not a big deal, but I think it ruins the finish. Why not just leave the date off, and then by the end of Feb call the people you haven't heard from?
If it's going to be there one way or the other I would just write it in. Yeah it'll get annoying but you also don't wanna give people a card where the RSVP date was yesterday or the next day. Can you do an insert with the RSVP date rather than having it written on the card?
In regards to the +1... will there be no kids invited? Assuming some of your friends have kids..
I just don't like the idea of handwriting it on a printed card. It's not a big deal, but I think it ruins the finish. Why not just leave the date off, and then by the end of Feb call the people you haven't heard from?
Yes....this is my concern. Whether or not its tacky or it'll "ruin" the look of the card. I haven't even thought about leaving the date out totally....but it's not a bad idea. I'll run it by fiance tonight and see what he says.
If it's going to be there one way or the other I would just write it in. Yeah it'll get annoying but you also don't wanna give people a card where the RSVP date was yesterday or the next day. Can you do an insert with the RSVP date rather than having it written on the card?
In regards to the +1... will there be no kids invited? Assuming some of your friends have kids..
Yep....don't want to give someone a RSVP date of a few days or worse...give them the card AFTER the RSVP date and make it obvious that they were on the "backup" list...lol. Nope...the card we're getting does nto give an option for "inserts" for the date.
Yes a few friends do have kids. And no, no kids are invited. The only 2 kids we're inviting specifically are my fiance's 4 year old niece...and one of my cousin's 5 year old son. There is a line in the RSVP that specially states "We have reserved two seats in your honor".
Quite honestly, writing it in isn’t the worst thing in the world and if you have nice penmanship even better. I’ve seen worse things… like my friend scanned his wedding invite and that’s how he gave it to his friends
you could look into hiring a calligapher to write the dates for you. your quantity is small enough that this will not cost a significant amount. just order 10% extra quantity of rsvp's for them. that way it wont ruin the finish and you dont need to worry about giving offense to the late invitees because the calligrapher can put down whatever date you want for those invitees.
OR bump up your rsvp-by date to allow some more time for the secondary list invitees. when do you need to give final numbers to your venue and caterers?
OR perhaps consider sending out invites earlier if you can't extend the rsvp-by date. a couple of weeks earlier should do it. then you follow up with your guests re: their rsvp's sooner.
get SGC to do the invites for you as she does this professionally, now that she know the whole issue, she'll make sure you have 2 sets of cards one with dates and one without :P
My aunt did this, she got a set of invites printed out with a separate RSVP card for people she knew were coming and would RSVP, she called and asked them personally aswell. The other set she got printed were without any "date" - She also put a website address on the dated RSVP cards which her son had created to do the RSVP online, incase someone wasn't into mailing back RSVP's etc. I found that soo much easier -
Sahar: I just placed the orders for all the cards! I literally got up the couch afterwards and did a silly dance! Stupid little details on the invites were driving me crazy…lol. BTW, I showed fiance the intial post where you wrote about your brother’s wedding card experience with birchcraft and recommended that site. Fiance says “thanks!”.
SCG: If you’re reading this…thanks a lot for all the tips on this thread and the previous one I opened! We ended up modifying our ceremony invite and went with one of the options you recommended on the previous thread. I showed fiance some of your responses while were were finalizing/ordering and he was said it was very “nice” of you to offer so many tips.
And of course…thanks to everyone else who has offered me tips/advice regarding invites. Now onto the next major headache for this wedding…photos/video…
