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!

Wow lots of replies to get through

Definitely no budging from the venue on payment dates but on further asking, they said I would lose 50% of the overall cost if I were to cancel after paying .

Luckily I haven't gone on about the party to DD - I've just told her we can ask , but people can't always make it and if not , we will go to the zoo for the day . She seems happy with this .

I have the two days before the party to ask parents face to face . I'm so annoyed that I'm just going to ask them all outright (politely) on the yard whether they are intending to come or not.

I will then get an idea and if it's a no , I'll cancel .

I'm not going to send out letters to let them know I've cancelled though - I'll have asked twice (invite and face to face) so if they show up then that's not my problem

What did the parents say when you handed the invite to them directly? Did you get any impression that they would be coming? Its strange no one has got back to you, i assume there is no ambiguity over your number. ...

I definitely wouldn't cancel. It will give your daughter a chance to meet friends and you too if you are new to the area. Has she not mentioned to you that her friends have told her they are going?

They didn't say anything . Just thank you .

No DD hasn't said anything about her friends coming - I don't want to make a big deal of her party as I'm not convinced it's going to happen.

I feel terrible and a bit humiliated - maybe they don't like me or DD ? Would you take it personally or does this happen to others too?

Ugh poor you.... I really dont get this not RSVPing thing that happens these days. DS first party with nursery friends age 3 taught me a fair few lessons, so I have cut my cloth for parties for DD and DS since, accordingly. Hardly anyone replied, people turned up who said they couldnt come, people who didnt rsvp came with siblings and expected them to join in.... It was exhausting.

Made a decision then and there to become and friendly as possible with as many parents as possible. Was a bit militant about it - going up to people in playgrounds saying "are you so and so's mum ?" then when it came to party time, I already knew who belonged to who, and had the mums numbers in my phone to send a text to.

Thankfully the big, invite lots of people party thing only seems to last until end of reception Yr 1. Now all my DCs parties are after school with me taking all 10/12 kids with me in taxi or via cars to the venue. No more worrying about who turns up at 10.30 on a Sunday morning!

I suspect they will be planning on coming, but just havent realised that the RSVP date was critical to you with regard to the payment side of things.

I'd cancel and leave a note at the venue. There is a chance that people might rsvp late but if it's just a few you could possibly do something low key with them?

I've had one big party for one of my children, never again. I'm a working mum and don't see the mums at the gates very often, and hardly anyone replied. I had to call in all favours just to get SOME kids attending.

I really don't think it has anything to do with you.

Oracle do you really think that parents haven't realised it's important to RSVP? Even if you do something at home, you have food to buy, party bags to organise etc... And yest somehow these parents have no idea on how much time it takes to do all that and that yes, letting you in time is important ?!? I mean party bags will take a week to come if you order in the internet for example.... But not knowing how many to order isn't an issue...

Amazing how when you are the organiser, you can see how not RSVP is an issue but somehow when you are invited, it's not an issue anymore

There's 2 weeks to go so plenty of chance for parents to rsvp. I know you gave them a date but I reckon a lot more will reply in the next week or two.

I wouldn't take it personallyat all - 5 weeks is a long time ahead and they probably mentally thought they'd reply nearer the time. I think it's a massive overreaction to cancel and would look quite odd. It may be that with these people it's normal to do things last minute - annoying but it happens!

I would cancel if it was me.

I have had parties where a parent turned up after no rsvp, dumped her child and siblings ( no sibling was invited and I had no idea even what sibling was called) without saying hello to me or giving me any way to get hold of her. I hear her say to her Dd "eat as much as you can as I'm not cooking tonight" as I turned around she left.

Since then I just send out " your invited to party on the afternoon of x date" please rsvp for final details. I am still enraged by it seven years later

But I'm also the idiot who had a whole year party of 60 reception kids thinking most would decline. About 50 kids came, three parents stayed and two of those sat in the corner without saying a word to me watching us struggle to serve food to 50 hungry kids at once

Then there was the one where a boys au pair turned not speaking a word of English and I couldn't get her to understand she was a hour to early to take him home. Also it was pizza express and Ds mate decided to model a cock and balls at the dough modelling stage, much eyebrow raising as the water had to judge the best model ( boy was five at the time)

I hate birthday parties

Nooo don't take it personally. This is just rather an unfortunate event in your life. Chalk it up to experience and see what you can learn to do it differently next time. You sound like a very nice and reasonable person and they'd have to be collectively a really nasty bunch to ignore you and your DD. It's not likely that they all got on their mobiles and agreed to boycott the party. People just aren't normally that organised or spiteful. I think you are overanalysing. It is most likely that the majority of the parents are thinking about the Easter holidays and may even be getting geared up for big school next year. That and of course they're all a bit crap at responding. And it is quite possible a lot of them have younger siblings to contend with and simply forgot - two plus under fives is a lot of work - invite got filed in big pile. As you weren't there to remind and pester they will quite possibly simply have forgotten. The end of term week for me is always a bit fraught. Other people have SAID it happens to them with mixed results. In some circumstances they all come, in others only a handful. What's not to love about a soft play party even if your DD is not their bff.

2boys. Sounds hilarious!! We have had no such fun. I would hope a few years on more would stay - there are so many safeguarding rules to consider. Child ratios etc, assuming they are applicable for private functions - I imagine you had this in a church hall or similar with no on site staff. I would never have left DD at that age even if she had let me.

Please do cancel, irrespective of parents then turning up, you personally handed them to each parent, It is rude. If you're considering cancelling and going away for the weekend, I would absolutely do that, you don't owe anybody an explanation at all, If you start getting late texts from today, I would just send a quick text back, 'Party cancelled, we needed RSVP for 23/3 for catering, we didn't want to risk birthday girl's disappointment on the day, so we arranged something else'. Sorry that you are upset, it seems all too common, don't pay the balance, spend it on a lovely weekend. ( My daughter's invites have gone out today !) Please do let us know what you've decided.

IdealWeather I never said it wasnt important. I said that maybe they didnt realise the date was critical. I was trying to reassure the OP that although it is upsetting and thoughtless they probably havent done it in malice.

The party is at some point in next few weeks. So in my experience, as you have highlighted, I suspect people didnt realise the balance of the party had to be paid for today - ie if they didnt RSVP by today then the party would be cancelled.

I think RSVPing is essential whether you can go or not, so I would never say it wasnt important, just that they might not of understood it being so date critical.

OP do what you think is best. If you can afford the 50% cancellation then would it be an option to go to school pick up / drop off tomorrow to try to speak to some of them? You absolutly shouldnt have to but might mean you can gauge numbers better ?

no rsvp is so rude

im assuming party is at soft play etc

i would cancel party

go to school on first day back, take new invites, stating at top VENUE HAS CHANGED, with your phone number, date and time of party BUT NO VENUE, hand out to all parents and say when handing out, venue has been changed due to circumstances beyond my control

have the party at home and invite other friends/relatives/neighbours with children

those who are interested will call you and you can give your address out :)

surprised there isnt a class rep, who does coffee am first week in term

, yes you work but try and make one a term work from home

plus most schools have a class list with phone numbers and email

if there isnt one, then start one, leave a printed form on clarrom door for parents to fill out

I think it would unfair on your daughter to cancel as presumably she knows about the party. I would continue with the party and invite some others not from school if possible. If it's in the holiday you might want to reschedule and leave the new details of the party date at the venue with explanation why for any stragglers. I think waiting the full 3 weeks till the deadline date was a bit silly to be honest now you can't contact them, obviously it's rude they didn't reply, but people can be thoughtless.

Hi there,

I know you said you're not on Facebook, but I can really recommend signing up, even if it's just to keep in touch for school related issues. I have two boys, 8 & 6, and ever since my first joined Reception class, we set-up a private group on Facebook - just for the school mums. We have a group for each class. Everything is set to secret, so no-one outside the group can see what's being discussed. But I can't tell you how helpful it's been for chat about emergency costumes, play dates, party organising, homework issues, lost and found etc etc etc. It would be a great way for you to get to know some of the other Mums too. I know this doesn't help right now - but worth looking into to see you through the primary school years! You never know, there might already be a group set-up.

Definitely don't take this personally, OP. People are rubbish. They probably noticed the party date and forgot /missed the RSVP date. I'm sure they are not snubbing you intentionally.

Were the invitations handwritten or did you print something off? If it's the latter, can you check that you included the correct contact details? In my experience, the "No"s come back quicker than the "Yes"s. It's surprising that you haven't had any responses.

If you decide to go ahead with it (and it would be totally reasonable to cancel), then you'll probably find responses start trickling in over the next couple of weeks. Once you get your first response, you can ask the replier whether they have contact details for any other parents as you haven't had much of a response to your invitation yet.

Oracle but surely anyone who has organised a party will know that you need to pay upfront and that there is a limit in time (ie payment has to be made by xx date). As I said, even when you do things at home, some stuff needs to be ordered before xx date if you want them to arrive on time.
It's not rocket science to know that yes anyone organising a party will have a critical date to know numbers in order to organise everything. So yes RSVP on time is critical. It's certainly not up to the people who are invited to decide whether said date is critical or not and whether it's important to answer by that time or not.

I'm not saying it's malice. I'm saying that it's showing total lack of thoughfulness. And I don't think t should be excused either.

Cancel. Even losing £80 is too much. Take DD out for the day instead. She'll have a much better time.

Blondeshavemorefun's idea is a good one.
Definitely cancel venue now while you can get your money back.
Otherwise the scenario will be you and maybe 5 kids and their miserable parents in a noisy soft play. What a waste.

I'd cancel. Wouldn't be able to cope with stressing all over Easter about noone turning up. It could happen.

Definitely cancel. She'll love the zoo and it's mad to pay out £120 for something without knowing you'll get any guests. By the time you're back at school the other kids will have plans.

I think you should cancel too. So sorry you're being ignored by these people. It's so rude and unnecessary, it takes seconds to reply. I can't stand the lame excuses "Oh, I'm too busy to text", "I'm so scatterbrained I just forget", "I'm not sure what we're doing so we'll keep the host hanging on". I'm pretty sure in most cases they're just waiting to see if they get a better offer and you and your DD deserve much better than that.

If any of these people do turn up at the venue, it serves them right for not bothering to let you know they were coming.

I wouldn't cancel. She's in reception - as much as people haven't rsvpd if you cancel and they turn up, your daughter will always be known as that girl. And it could affect her in school. Is it soft play? Could you cancel the organised party, but still go - and see who comes?

I often forget to rsvp. I don't mean to, it's not rudeness or laziness. It's pure being too bloody busy. Juggling breakfast club, after school club, kids, work, and other commitments the invites get put on the side or live in the bags.

We got a few rsvps for DSs birthday. And some not until the day. It's one of those things - he's 8 and was perfectly happy with only three friends for his party.

And our school does not give out phone numbers or contact names at all. Haven't ever known a state school to, only private schools.

We do have a PTA Facebook page, but it's not very active