Over on Little Bitty City One, one of my most popular posts was all about wedding guest etiquette. While most of my advice stays the same, I thought I might do an updated version after going through ALL OF THE WEDDINGS round one and into ALL OF THE WEDDINGS round two including my own.
Originally, I was going to do this all in one post, but TBH once I got to like 1000 words and could still keep going, I thought it might be better split them up. So without further ado, I bring you wedding etiquette part one: The RSVP card.
Marble Rose Gold RSVP Postcard
I cannot emphasize this enough- so I’ll rhyme it to you Dr. Seuss styley:
Send in your RSVP. Send it in ASAP.
Even if the bride is your best friend, she’ll be pissed if you don’t send.
Even if the groom is family, send it in so they can see.
You are one of many guests, please follow this simple request.
The count is needed for the food, so mail it in and you’ll be good!
I honestly thought my RSVP cards made life super easy. They were postcards I designed on Zazzle with our logo and specific instructions to fill them out, plus a stamp to send them right back in. For some reason, and I know I’m not the only bride this has happened to, we just haven’t gotten them all back… or we’ve gotten them back with no name on them etc. I beg of you, for future brides everywhere, please, please send in your RSVP cards and make sure you follow the directions on them or at least put your name on them. Luckily, I gave myself an extra week on top of the recommended time to chase them, but it kinda stinks that I have to do that. A verbal confirmation is nice but it’s so much easier to keep track of your guests when it’s there in black and white.
Part of the reason I did postcards (not just for ease/ less paper wasted) was that I know there are guest with allergies and food sensitiveness. I wanted room for them to be able to write this information in for us to give our venue. What I wasn’t expecting, and what I love, is that my guest have also written in sweet or funny notes. My favorite RSVP came from two of my best friends from college who are now married. Under allergies, Serino wrote
No Jimmy Jazz
Black Ice
Extra hot sauce for Grr Mrr
These are all inside jokes from college and it warmed my heart. I plan on keeping my RSVPs with special notes for years to come.
Brides, do give yourself extra time to chase as things do happen. Sahra texted me asking for my RSVP before her wedding and found out my invitation never made it to me. We JUST got a save the date returned to sender (we sent those in November I think). Mail happens. It’s ok. But that’s why it’s important to help the bide out as much as you can by doing your part.
Another tip for brides came to me too late. NUMBER your RSVP cards with corresponding guests. Sure, it would have taken a lot of extra time on the front end, but we would have known who Anonymous Chicken & Anonymous Beef were. WOMP WOMP.
Bonus tip: the invitation is addressed to the invitee(s) only. Pay attention to see if you can bring a guest. We’ve had a couple of extenuating circumstances and I know things come up, but do check in with the bride/groom/ family to make sure it’s ok if you want or need to bring an extra person. And please do be respectful if the couple has to stick to the original guest list with no exceptions. Luckily, we’ve had some wiggle room to be accommodating but this is not always the case.
Keep in mind that not all weddings now have RSVP cards. We wanted to go the traditional route (mostly. I think the postcard was a little off the beaten path), but I’ve been invited to 2 weddings that had online RSVPs and one where the bride did just want a verbal confirmation. As a bride, please make this clear to your guest what you want.
For brides wanting to go super traditional with the full wedding suite, I cannot recommend Minted enough. We ordered my invitations from there and they are STUNNING. You can customize them to a point, and I got exactly what I wanted for a traditional invitation. If we wanted to, we could have done all the paper for my wedding with the same design, including the website. It was my own choice to incorporate my own designs using our logo Zazzle for RSVP cards, menus, welcome cards for those staying at the hotel, programs, and probably thank you notes!
This is clearly a hot-button issue for me and probably for most brides. Sorry this was such a long post! Thank you for staying with me and I’d love to know your thoughts on RSVP cards in the comments.
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