To cancel DD birthday party?

[TheresHopeYet]

DD is turning 4 and we have a party booked for her in two weeks time .

I handed out invites directly to parents 3 weeks ago with an RSVP date of TODAY!

I have not had a single RSVP. Not one .

It's school holidays here and I do not know the parents well enough to chase them up or have phone numbers etc .

The balance of the party is due today ; it's £140. I have already paid a £20 deposit which I will lose .

If I cancel after paying the balance I will lose the lot .

Would you cancel? I could use the money to take DD away for the weekend instead.

I am worried though that a load of people will turn up at the party and we won't be there

I need to decide today ! Help!

Hi op. What a shame. Your DD is very young and it sounds like you're both trying to fit in. I am a very dubious about cancelling the whole thing because it is the parents, who have the power to invite whomsoever they please to their children's parties or in play dates at this age I'm afraid. If you cancel, you run the risk of ostracising her from future invites to parties and playdates and seriously damaging her street cred. Sorry but mummies in the playground sometimes act worse than the kids and believe you me, my DD has been on the receiving end of mummies bs and I'm sure these women have no qualms about telling their children exactly what they think. Much as I would want to have a bugger them all type attitude, I would be reinviting these kids and possibly consider including a bunch more as a back up as well, stalking them in the playground until you get an answer. I really feel for you and as another poster has said, I never make the rsvp date the same as the pay date. I collect parents numbers in my phone each time they have either invited DD to a party and each time I have a response to an invite for dds parties. This way, I can chase them. I often have to chase parents it's not really malicious, just infuriating. I've forgotten to respond myself the odd time in the past. And we get invites well in advance sometimes and some of the parents send out reminder texts a day or two beforehand or collar me in the playground to remind me. So nothing odd in stalking them when the children return to school.
Do you know where any of these children or another sympathetic parent lives? Even if you know the street but not the exact house, the neighbours will know who you mean. Then you could knock on some doors and perhaps cobble this all together during the holidays. I would also find it hard to swallow that no one has responded. You are just going to have to be a bit hard nosed about this I'm afraid. And you never know, if you do go knocking on a few doors, you may meet some lovely people in the process even if you meet some crap ones as well. It is better to know than not. And if you are living in a bit of a posh area where appearance is important, please remember to dress nicely - sorry that sounds really patronising. My friend asked me what I would be wearing on the first day of school and advised me to look "gathered" because of where I live. Personally I don't give a crap anymore. But I did at the beginning just to help DD fit in.
And btw the parents hardly say anything to you because you as the outsider probably need to breeze in and say something to them first with a big happy open smile to dazzle. That works actually. Confidence, confidence,, practice in front of the mirror.

With my own children I tended to get fairly good responses, but have noticed over the years and bringing up my gs's that people are a whole lot ruder about responding. I haven't bothered with parties as such for them and family and friends usually take them out for the day which they really enjoy. Generally they go out for a meal, pizza etc then on to an activity.

Don't wander around the school gates asking people if they are coming, it will just confuse matters further and do you really need to strike up a network of rude people?

Your priority is your dd and her feelings. Please do cancel. So what if some turn up and it is cancelled, that is their parents' fault. Protect her feelings and do something you will all enjoy free from having to worry about other people and their bad manners. I hope you dd has a lovely day!

Cancel, shows people there is an impact from rude behaviour, spend money on DD instead.

Cardibach. I have 3 kids, two jobs, caring for an elderly mother. DH works full time erratic hours. Time is precious and money is tight. I would love my kids to be able to go all to their friend's parties, and most often we make that happen, especially if it is a "best friend". But we would not be able (or willing) to plan our family life around an invitation to the 14th whole class party the 5 year old has been invited to that academic year. Sounds harsh but it is true. It is not about " a better offer", it is just the reality of many people's circumstances. We always decline if we know we can't get there.

FWIW I'm an old hand at this. And you pretty much always have to chase.

If you don't know anyone, I agree with Janecc, it doesn't strike a great note if you cancel. Yes, you are teaching them a lesson, but who wants to be taught a lesson. It's not a good starting point if you are trying to integrate into a new area and have no friends. As for getting a 'rude network' people are busy with busy lives, I usually get one or two early responses and have to chase the rest out of 10 but these are nice people, just very busy and oftentimes invites just go out of view and mind.

I think the person who suggested having it at the house instead had a genius idea. That way you can cancel today and get your money back, plus then approach the non-repliers (or anyone who does text after the event) with the news it's now round at your house. Plus you can invite some family, a neighbour, so it's not all about these few children.

That way you get to keep your money, and still meet new people.

All these people suggesting cancelling and teaching people a lesson, I've never had a children's party be cancelled on me and my dd's go to several every year. On MN, everyone is harsh, but in my life, no-one just cancels parties to teach busy mums and dads a lesson.

You can cancel the £160 party in a nice non-confrontational way and not have it be anything about "punishing" people or making it awkward for your 4 year old. I would say actually it's a bit of a chance of an ice-breaker - a smaller party where you need to personally invite fewer DC and so have a chance to chat to their parents. No need for a massive drama, most people will well understand a change of plans for whatever reason.

You'd be crazy to cancel. Just remind people when ur back in school. Five wks before seems v long , too long to me. Also some parents will never RSVP. It may be rudeness, ignorance, forgetfulness or genuinely not knowing if they can make it. Its a fact of life, not an opportunity to teach people a lesson...

Who are you hurting if you cancel? Your dd and your reputation as the mother who cancelled party ...

Saoirse, she loses £160 if she doesn't cancel.

I think you need to cancel. Over £100 is a lot to lose because of other people's disorganisation.

I had a party for DD a while ago and handed out invites ahead of school hols (as after would have been too short notice). Most parents did reply, but someone had helpfully set up a FB group for parents to discuss general issues/swap uniform etc., so I posted in there reminding people to RSVP. By my 'need to confirm' date there were still 4 who had no responded. I hounded them down in the playground and asked them.

On the day, one child did not turn up. No phone call or text (despite all DD's classmates parents having each others contact details), and no apology until weeks later.

Is there any chance you can arrange something a bit less formal if you cancel? Or take your DD out for a day and spend the equivalent on fun.
If people can't be arsed to reply or forget then it's their problem, not yours OP.

dont cancel.

Why don't you change the venue, cancel the expensive place - then you can go round and find the parents and invite people and say you have changed things.

Does term start before the party?

I am not a big fan of these whole class parties - who are they even for? If you don't know any parents why not wait a year or two and have a big party when you do know people.

waterrat the thing is the party is for her dd, not the OP. The fact the OP doesn't know the other parents shouldn't come into play. Would it be really fair for her dd not to have a party wirth her friends for a few years just because her mum doesn't know the other parents, or rather because her mum works so can NOT do small talk with the other parents???

Tbh, I've cancel a party like this with dc2. People got back to me, said they were coming and then said a couple of days before that actually no they weren't.
I contacted the couple of cildren that said they would be there, told them that unfortunately there was a change of plan (told them why too). dc2 had a whale of a time doing something different with the money planned for that party.
The parents who cancelled have stopped talking to me though. out of deep guilt and knowing full well that what they did was extremely rude. Their loss.

re what HP said earlier on, ie that she can have plans coming up just a few days before the weekend, I'm sorry but though. Either you make the commitment to come for the party or you don't. If you decide it's too early, then you say NO to the party and your dc won't be going to said party even if it happens that you don't have anything else to do. You can't pick and chose like this. Nor can you expect people to fork hundreds of pounds wo knowing if people will come or not. It's just RUDE.

Just say 'Is X able to make DS's party on Sat?'.

Ghoul, did you read the OP?

Well round here you'd be considered to be very up yourself if you got upset because a party you hadn't bothered to RSVP to was cancelled. And forget the 'busy mums and dads' bullshit. I've never known someone with manners be so busy they couldn't spare 30 sec to send a text.

The problem with cancelling is you'll have to tell everyone it's cancelled otherwise they'll just turn up.

As you're new to the area and people don't really know you, I'd be wary of being known as the mum who threw her toys out of the pram and cancelled her dd's party because people didn't reply.

I'm not for one second suggesting you are throwing your toys out of the pram and I 100% understand why you would cancel.

You've also got to factor in how your dd would feel if no one turned up if you went ahead.

What a PITA for you.

I worried we wouldn't get anyone coming when we (ok, dh, but my fault in that i was away a lot) invited people 5 days before DD's party.

Most of them came, plus some siblings! Despite utter lack of notice.

Mostly they RSVP'd too. I think RSVP manners differ in different social groups - at DD1's old school we would invite at least half the class or more, and we'd have at least 5-10 who turned up on the day with no RSVP or anything. If they did RSVP, they mostly just found me in the playground in the morning rather than text (no idea why)-- hard because DH often did drop-off and DD goes to after school club, so I was rarely there to be found. This new school, I think everyone texted one way or the other.

I can't imagine anyone getting annoyed about a change of location so if you think you can manage it at home, cancelling the venue and then hosting yourself could be good. we had DD's at home, all was fine (bit of chaos) but it would have been hard if we didn't have the outside space that we do.

I'm in the definitely cancel camp too. Way too risky to put your DD in a situation where there may be nobody turning up, and that's without the issue of the money you'd be throwing away.

I agree that if you get anyone replying in the interim, tell them that there has been a change of plan and just buy the responders into a soft play and buy them a meal or something, for the sake of the children. It's still incredibly rude of the parents though.

Personally I would go ahead with the party, reduce numbers if possible and next week when you are back to nursery ask F2F if people have received the invite and will be coming. Invite friends and family so if there is a no show on the day you will still have fun and your DD wont be sat there on her own.

FWIW I didn't realise for nearly 3 months that my DD in Pre School now has a tray and I had loads of Christmas cards in there that I didn't know about, could the invites be sat somewhere in the nursery?

I'd also cancel too, losing an extra £120 more isn't worth the hassle.

Having parties is a nightmare for RSVPS, during school holidays it's even worse with this stuff, people reply and say yes then forget about the party, they don't reply and do/don't turn up etc etc and you're not even at school to remind them.

As you can guess, we now don't have big parties for DCs' birthdays as all fall during school hols.

FWIW, I probably wouldn't cancel either.

No class list? I'm not sure what I'd do. If school goes back before party I'd keep the booking and chase when they got back. If not, then I'd cancel. The parents have the invite so they are aware of the date. I have to say I hated all this party stuff, but if I were you I would get to know the mums if you can - makes so much difference.

at DDs schools the class parent rep has always gathered info for a Contact Sheet which is emailed to everyone - mobile nos, addresses, emails - really useful. is that not usual?