Your date and venue is booked, it is an exciting time to be sending out your invitations and waiting for those RSVP’s. Do you need top tips for managing your RSVPS? I mean who is coming to your wedding and who isn’t?
What is not so exciting is managing all those RSVP’s so here are a few tips to help you.
MAKE IT EASY FOR GUESTS TO REPLY.
Your RSVP’s should have a blank line for your guests names and a simple check box, I can, or cannot attend your wedding. There are many fun ways to create these with humour thrown in so do spend time checking out a few ideas.
The best idea is booking a stationery designer to create something special, here is our stationery designer, Secret Diary. We suggest paperless digital designs or creating your own wedding website. If you do not have the time we can help you, contact us for a quote on building your wedding website.
Clever tip: Include a self addressed stamped envelope so they have no excuse not to pop the RSVP into the mail.
ADD A DEADLINE.
Depending on the lead time for your wedding you will need to let your wedding planner and catering know the final guest count at least two weeks before your wedding.
The sooner you have this information on hand the easier your wedding planning will be. Ideally we always suggest with a year time line you should have back most of your RSVP’s 3 months beforehand.
This gives you time to plan your table seating arrangements and follow up with any guests who haven’t responded. Even if you are having informal catering they do still need to know how many plates, cutlery, napkins, etc to provide as well as food and drinks.
KEEP TRACK OF REPLIES
It is important to stay on top of this and organised. If you leave the RSVP’s piling up, what was a small job will become a weekend’s work of sorting through them.
The best way is to create an excel spreadsheet, if you have a wedding planner then they will be able to provide you one.
A good RSVP excel sheet should have the clients name, date they replied, any food allergies they may have and a meal choice, if there is an option on your RSVP to select their meal. You may also wish to include a table number they will be assigned to, this will help you later when finalising your table seating plan.
Tip: Here you may like to create a freebie or small cost RSVP planner for your audience to download to capture their email addresses.
FOLLOW UP ON NON RESPONDERS
Don’t despair, I don’t know one wedding where the couple or their family haven’t had to follow up with a few guests. Whether they are busy, just forgot or it is on their list to do just pick up the phone and call them.
A CLEVER TIP
If you are going old school by sending out Invitations whether it is by mail or email. When you are sending out your RSVP’s via mail number them discreetly on the back and also assign this number to your guest list. If Mr Smith let’s say is Number 5 on your excel sheet, also write a small 5 on the back of the RSVP card. This way if someone forgets to fill in their name or you just can’t fathom out their handwriting you know who that RSVP is from. Maybe try this with invisible ink so that guest doesn’t see the discreet number.
