To have the rage with parents blatantly not rsvping to dds party

[Cluesue]

Dd who will be 4 next week is having a whole class party,party is for 30 children,any extra children who attend have to be paid for above the set price,baring this in mind(there are 30 in class and 6 friends children coming) I put an rsvp date (yesterday)and asked politely if they could let me know by then as I need exact numbers.

4 !! Replies the day the invites went out and none at all til yesterday evening,where I got 3 more,physically went to speak to 3 and outright asked if they'd got the invites,yes they had them,but no bloody mention of if they are coming so I'm just assuming they are.

Well I was so peed off that I got in touch with all the people who had bothered to reply to say they could bring siblings.

As it stands there are 27 children coming,but what the fffing he'll do I do about the other 20 who haven't bothered to reply,if they turn up I'm looking at forking out another £50 plus there won't be enough room or party bags,I'm tempted to tell the staff at the venue that if they show up they either pay themselves or go home again.

First big party I've done and it will certainly be the last

At my sons 5th birthday, 5 invitations vanished off into the ether, never to be heard from again. Out of 30 invites, I see now I had it lucky.
I did hit on a good idea for avoiding party bag misery. We borrowed the tuck shop sweets that my churches kids group use and let the children pick what they wanted and I had a bucket of random cheap crap toys that the kids could pick from. Enough to go around, saved some of the spare toys for Christmas stocking fillers and put £20 into the tuck shop fund.
It's daft really, nowadays it's so easy to respond quickly with a text or email, you don't have to go and find someone to talk to or write a note, yet it seems to be a thing to not respond.
Also, if you're not sure - then say! I can imagine most hosts would understand and at least then they know the invite has made it home!

She's not my pfb by the way,her Older sister just never wanted a big party(wanted the money instead

shwabi don't expect other kids to come and lavish more dd with gifts and feel grateful for the invite,like I said up thread there was an offer on whereby I could invite the whole class for the same price I would have paid for a dozen so I was actually thinking it would be nice not to leave anyone out,I really don't care if the majority declined as long as they let me know.

It's the not knowing that could potentially cost me a lot of money I haven't got that bothers me,when all it takes is a text

And we've used our own invites not the venues generic ones and painstakingly made sweet bags up layer by layer,dds had a ball

Rainbow I have actually told all rsvpers that all siblings are welcome,hence why there's no space left for non rsvpers should they show up

I think some PPs have misunderstood the meaning of this thread. The OP is not so much worrying about how many guests will actually be attending so much as how to plan for a certain number of attendees, which is hard to do if some don't have the good manners to reply. Not the same as someone 'getting their knickers in a twist' over lack of special treatment for their pfb. It only takes a second to send a text.

Wow I'm really shocked by this, I've never experienced this.

In future if I were you I would send out invites then just confirm face to face. Or not do large parties in a place where people are so rude!!

Sorry OP I wasn't digging at you personally, in just battle-hardened from hundreds of kids' parties.

Yup. This gives me the rage too. I love a party, and have invited a whole class so no one would be left out and because at 4 friendships are pretty fluid. I don't think anyone does this really beyond P1 do they?

Anyway, re my generic village hall party - Come/don't come, bring siblings/don't, your offspring doesn't like parties - fine. BUT FUCKING TELL ME so I can get the bloody food and party bags sorted. The End.

I think it's rude not to reply. If my DD can't go to a party I'd at least text the parent to let them know, it takes a few seconds.
This year DD invited 7 of her friends to ours , we had replies from 6 but I don't know the parents of the other girl so assumed she wasn't coming. Half an hour before party we find out she is coming and she turns up about an hour after party has started!

Very rude.

I invited 16 children to DDs 5th party a few months ago. Only had to chase three and they ALL came.

I RSVP the day I get the invite the vast majority of the time but I would bin an invite saying 'RSVP for details' as with two younger children I need to know the details - time, location before I RSVP.

I wouldn't let yourself get upset by it, I think its rude definitely, but wonder if some people just don't get it or understand RSVP. I never used 'RSVP', just wrote 'please let me know by...' Etc.

Having said that, D's for five or six years invited all boys, (14) and one boy s mother never either responded or turned up.

YANBU to expect people to reply, it's common courtesy.

However, I'd still keep chasing people up politely. I'd be mortified if I was thought to be ignoring an invitation that for some reason hadn't made it home!

I think to not rsvp is very rude of the parents even as an adult I always rsvp to parties/weddings we are invited too. When ds is olde enough to be invited (his only a baby) I would never be rude and not rsvp

ClueSue fair enough but raging at people when you've asked them to put themselves out for you is a bit much - as is punishing kids for their parents being disorganised, which is what you are doing if you give them an invite then withdraw it because their parents haven't rsvp ed rather than chase up.

You can't bill yourself as nice for not leaving anyone out but then turn around and withdraw invites without even trying to remind people or check invites made it home and into parental hands.

My own experience, ten didn't reply but they were all non-attenders.

God feeling your pain

Did a party not that long ago and in the end got a decent turnout 18 plus siblings and I had not invited the whole class - but God the politics of it all- thankfully the birthday children themselves don't have any awareness of this

Would also say in my experience those who do not rsvp very rarely turn up - there was a thread a while ago where a lady had organised child's first proper party and had hoped many of those who had not rsvpd would jays turn up on the day - because for some posters this was the norm in their area - unfortunately in this case the non rsvpd didn't turn up and it left her quite rightly upset

I am hoping by time DC are age 7 plus I can leave the bigger parties behind

cant u just say i need a reply because of food ordering health requierments rather than did u get our invite?

I disagree that it's not doing a nice thing to invite someone to a party. I don't begrudge buying a present if my child is going to have fun and be entertained for a couple of hours with friends. My kids love going to parties. Admittedly they have been invited to some good ones - bowling, swimming, trampolining, horse riding etc. I generally do something with my kids at the weekend anyway so not sure why some parents would begrudge having to drive somewhere and watch their child!

Oh, I get so pissed off at this. The one year it mattered, when DD's party was at Baby Loves Disco, I had to chase parents up in the playground so I could book.

I don't see anyone expecting others to be grateful .

Just asking for a reply.

I'm not convinced it gets much better as they get older. DD just turned 11. She wanted to do trampolining and then a sleepover. I said she could invite her 4 closest friends. Three responded straight away. The fourth first said she couldn't go because it was the weekend she was at her dads. Then she said she had her weekends confused and maybe she could go. Then she said she could go so I booked the trampolining at £20 per child. Then the day before the party, she announced her mother said she couldn't go after all. Not a peep from her mother the whole time, just a constant flip flopping. The trampolining place books up and I didn't want her to turn up and not have a spot, but what a waste of money that was!

Does it work any better to have a reply slip that the child might want to fill in and return?