When parents don't reply to party invitations?

[waitingforfanjo]

DS 4th birthday in a week. My first time organising a kid's party & I'm doing the food, so I need to know how much to buy, plates, napkins etc. We have invited whole nursery class (DS loves everybody, apparently ) plus other friends, so in total 40 children.

Now I'm not expecting everyone to come but gave out invitations 2 weeks ago, asking for RSVP please. Only 15 have replied. Most haven't bothered to tell me one way or t'other and I need to start buying the supplies pretty soon.

So, do I assume that if people don't reply they are not coming and scale down food & other party stuff? And then possibly be left short of food/plates/loot bags if they do turn up?
Or do I cater for 40 kids (sigh) with all that expense and possibly have to put up with extra cost & food for nothing?

Is this normal that people don't reply? I always reply if DS is invited.

If people haven't replied I would assume they're not coming, and enjoy the party with those who have accepted the invitation

be prepared to get last minute acceptances, I had about 10 txts/calls in the 4 days leading up to the party-mostly people had forgot and then suddenly realised and hoped it wasnt too late to accept!

Wow 40 people is a lot! Respect!!!

If people don't reply I grab them in the playground, but tbh it's never been more than the odd one I've not seen. Usually people give me a verbal "yes" within a day or so which is fine.

Are you sure they have all ahd them? We weren't back at school 2 weeks ago...

Overall, and seeing as it's 25 people, I would assume 15 will be there and cater a few extra in terms of food/party bags. Most people ime who don't reply aren't coming.

However, yes, you may get messages this week still! Take a final count on Thursday maybe.

I would chase them up. Either by phone or in person at the nursery.

IMO it is very rude not to respond to an invitation, but clearly not everyone feels the same way. I'm resigned to it by now.

I'm finding this. Funnily enough the ones who can't make it have been better at replying, and the ones (I've been able to contact to find out) who hadn't replied have said yes they are coming.
It's been peeing me off a bit too - like it's just something they've marked on their calendar, like a play day or something. But as you say - need to sort out stuff according to numbers, so it'd be good to know.

waitingforfanjo please do check that the invitations actually went out. When DD1 was in reception the mother of one child sent in a pile of invitations for the teacher to give out - teacher mislaid most of the invitiaions and the poor child only had a few at the party.

The mother was really narked at the other parents until she started asking around and found out that most had not even had their invitations (she used the before and after school club so didn't see other parents in the playground to ask beforehand - just thought they were rude and had not bothered to reply)

Apologies, NOT two weeks ago, ONE week ago .

yes, they've all had them, nice teacher gave them all out. Have had several verbal replies but trouble is I don't know which parent goes with which child half the time. They just tend to hop out of cars, bundle the child in & hop back in again, so not much standing round chatting.

Actually, in my naive 'first time party' way, I thought it would be nice to have most of them there so the parents might get to know each other a bit more. Wasn't supposed to be so many, but because DS has just missed out on going up to Reception, over half the children he was with last year have gone up, and the Nursery class has new children that I didn't want to leave out.

Clary, not sure about respect I am beginning to realise I am probably mad asking so many. Thank God it's in a hall, not my house. Couldn't swing a cat in my house!

I'm not worried about DS not enjoying it, cos 15 are coming so far but just begrudge paying for food/party bags/tableware etc that may go to waste. But equally, don't want the embarrasment of children turning up and I haven't enough for them.

I shall hope for last-minute replies. Just seems rude not to tell people you can't come.

Sorry, X -posted with ChookKeeper. I know the invitations went out because I could see the children each had one when they came out of the class. AFAIK all the parents got them.

Not getting replies is obviously an inevitable occupational hazard in kids-party-planning-land. I shall remember this for future years.

Ah well in that case they are just plain rude.

Thankfully mine are past the party stage now but one year dd2 was having a bowling party (game and hot meal) so obviously I'd had to prebook. One cheeky family who had not replied (and had not been catered for) turned up with their dd and (uninvited) much younger ds and left them both at the door and left . Had to do some emergency ordering of extra food and bowling shoes.

Also had a parent (at a different party) not turn up to collect child until nearly an hour after the party ended .

Lessons were learned and invitations always went out with cut off date for RSVP and LARGE note saying that if we had no reply we would take that as a not coming.

We also got parents to give us their contact number on the RSVP so that any stragglers could be contacted asap.

Hope the party goes well.

Thanks for the tips ChookKeeper, I shall bear those in mind for future years. Can't belive that family left both kids with you after not even bothering to reply. I'd just love to have the guts to say 'I'm sorry, you didn't reply so we thought you weren't coming, i'm afraid there isn't a place for you' but that would be punishing the children for having rude parents.

it does get better as they get older and the parties get smaller but this is a bit cheeky of them. Chase up all you can, but make sure you have plenty of extras for party bags. Kids of this age eat nada at parties apart from cheesy wotsits so you don't need to worry about food, apart from intravenous vino for you

I posted a thread about this time last year on the same subject!

MN advice was to give your list of non-replyers to nursery and ask them to ask the parents. This worked well because I don't really see the parents and don't necessarily know them. I'm fully expecting to do the same this year. It's bloody annoying but you need to know one way or t'other (especially for such a large crowd).

Enjoy the party!

Thank you all for the replies. i've had several more replies and I'm not worrying so much about it now...have decided to just go with the flow, assume most are coming & cater accordingly. as tigerdrivesagain says, they tend not to eat much so I'm going to keep food basic.Plus I have no-one to help prepare. Sarnies,Jaffa Cakes,Party Rings, grapes, cherry tomatoes, maybe carrot & cucumber sticks for attempt at healthy eating, cocktail sausages, cheese cubes & home made chocolate crispie cakes. Oh and crisp-type nibbles.

Party bags...have had to buy 40 but only 10p each. putting in things that DS will eat so if there are loads left, he can use them up over the next few years : mini Haribo Starmix, Cadbury's Freddo bar, mini Milky Bar (for kids who don't like 'brown' chocolate & vice versa), a punch ballon & stickers. Does this sound OK?