Birthday party ignorance

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Long story short -
I sent out birthday invites over a week ago to the children invited to my child's 5th birthday party. (Let's say around 15 children were invited)
The invites were a bit badly put together (printed them myself) but I included the information -
"(Insert name here)'s birthday party"
"Date and location"
"Time of party"
"Phone number - any questions please ask" (yes I definitely wrote the phone number down correctly)
"Please RSVP by (insert date) with name of child and whether you are able to attend, thank you."
It's been over a week now and I have not had a single reply.
There is only a few days left until the RSVP date.
I'm unable to chase the matter up with most of the parents, for a number of reasons. (Silly reasons, but I am unable to nonetheless)

Would it be unreasonable of me to cancel the party if I receive no replies by the RSVP date?
This seems like the most logical thing to do.

My worry with this is that people will still turn up, even having not bothered to respond. They will then be met with no party and I will be the bad guy at the school gates for letting their children down.

On the other hand, why would I go ahead with something that quite possibly nobody will turn up to. I don't want them to think the world revolves around them, and that I will go ahead with it even with no responses.

What would you do?
This is my first time planning something like this and I am really stuck for what to do.
Thanks.

I’m having a similar issue although with my sons nursery. We’ve only invited 5 kids as he has non-nursery friends too. I sent the invites 2 weeks ago, had to ask his key worker to choose 5 kids as it’s his 3rd birthday so not particularly reliable when I ask him who he wants to invite. I don’t know who has been invited. I’ve had 2 reply’s in the last 2 weeks, one reply was 4 days after the invitations were sent and the other replied 12 days after the invitations were sent. The party isn’t for a few more weeks and I didn’t put a rsvp by date on which was probably a bit silly but I’m in a bit of a quandary as to whether I presume the others aren’t coming and send a few more invites to nursery or just keep waiting and hope they respond last minute.

My son is the same age, started school this September. He's been to two parties so far.

I'm like you OP. I check his bag each day. I rsvp to people. I'm anxious but say hi and smile etc.

Party 1 we went to had a big turn out. I'm not sure how many actually rsvp'd. 🤷
Party 2 only two mums rsvp'd including me and one cancelled the morning of the party. One other turned up announced. Luckily birthday child had also invited their many cousins.

I find it SO rude and baffling that people don't send a quick text. It's just bad manners.

I'd double check with school that they were sent out. I'm not sure what I'd do in your shoes but with zero rsvps and what sounds like a rather antisocial crowd of parents I think I'd be tempted to go to plan B. Cancel and do something different but equally as exciting and special like a day out or a treat activity etc.

Birthdays parties are so expensive and it is sad for the birthday child if no one shows. 😔 It really blows my mind how thoughtless people can be. Just a quick text of "thanks for inviting X, we'd love to come/so sorry but we can't make it" takes seconds. 🙄

Been doing birthday party every year for 8 years now. Always write please rsvp to this number. No one ever rsvp. Sometimes maybe just one parent. But often no one. And the party always full. They always showed up.

I think you are being a bit melodramatic about this. It’s totally normal for parents to RSVP around the RSVP date (or after). For many, this may be the first party they’ve ever been invited to. Parents may be a bit be nervous or they may not even know they’ve received it! Honestly, I actually look in my dc’s bags maybe once a week if that. I rely on them to tell me they’ve received an invite or else I don’t notice. But most parents will be thrilled that their child has received their first party invite and will be grateful you’ve broken the ice. I very much doubt that no one will come, but it’s likely you will have to chase if you’re counting on knowing firm numbers.

My daughter is 4, and only started in September. She doesn't know everyone's names sadly

Retrospect is a wonderful thing, of course, but this is part of the problem. IME this lack of RSVPing is when you've invited a bunch of children that aren't necessarily particularly friendly with your DC.

If you stick to a few close friends (yes, I realise this is hard/impossible in Reception) it's much more likely you'll get replies, plus your child is more invested in getting responses too!

What do you mean by this? Is this a whole class party or just all the girls?
In any case you should ask your child to remember as many names as they can.
And then you tick them off tomorrow after school.

Sorry, I see. Seems she doesn't know and you don't know who is actually invited. That's going to be tricky.

Were the invites given out close to half term?

Did you hand them out just before half term? And now the kids have just come back to school?

Most parents won't have seen the invites.

Cancel & take to theme park or cinema /lunch out for the day. She’s only just started school. Next year once they all have gotten to know each other in class and hopefully some of the parents too you could always do a party then. This is what I would do- save your stress & disappointment-the parents sound really antisocial here but also the school isn’t helping- my DDs teacher gave out name lists, reminders to rsvp in the class app and handed out the invites. Hope she has a fab birthday with you/family! X

Ha! Great minds

I am struggling to understand why your school or PTA hasn't done any events to welcome the children and bring families together. Really unusual not to have a WhatsApp group too in this day and age (could you start one?).

You really do need to be proactive and lurk and approach parents collecting daughters. Perhaps also contact the PTA and ask if they could organise a coffee morning etc. (offer to help?). There must be parents of children in your class who also have children further up the school they could put you in touch with.

You can't just cancel the party. You will still need to track all the parents down and explain it is cancelled!

This

Gets your invite across but it doesn't put them on the spot

I find that a lot of people these days don't register that something exists if it doesn't pop up on their phone and comes as a note on actual paper.

Also, as PPs have said, notes in school bags routinely get missed - although you'd think that reception parents would be a bit more conscious of checking bags, with it all being new to them and the young age of the kids meaning that they don't instinctively remember (not that older kids remember either, but they should!)

I think the lack of names hasn't helped either - even though you couldn't help this. If the invitation doesn't have their DD's name on it, they might just assume it's a general flyer rather than a specific invitation to their DD, possibly even suspecting you of an ulterior motive such as using your DD as an excuse for an MLM party or something.

Some people would reckon that, if you can't even be bothered to write their child's name on the invitation, why should they bother to reply - even though you couldn't have done anything else under the circumstances.

Don't panic op. I've been through years of this. First party I ever did whole class party only a handful replied.

People are really lax about replying. Some invitations won't have made it out of the children's bags. Some will have forgot.

You're going to have to be really brave here and approach the parent.

Totally get how difficult that can be. Especially when you don't know them well.

Just approach "hi, are you Amelia's mum, just wondered if you received dds invitation and whether Amelia can make it".

It might take you a few days to get round then all. Some might be rude. I've had parents look at me like I'm from outer space, most will probably be really apologetic.

Good luck and I hope you get some responses so that you dd can have a good birthday.

Hi OP, I understand how you are feeling. It's all so stressful and gut wrenching when no one has responded by now and you are worrying about delivering the bad news to your child. I am also very much like you, don't talk to many parents and keep to myself at school runs. That's absolutely fine, being social with other parents at primary school is not a requirement.
I had something similar happen when I sent out invites for my DCs party - at first only 2-3 people responded, but then the majority of replies came through in the last 4-5 days before the RSVP deadline I'd indicated. I then confirmed the exact numbers with the venue and purchased the exact number of party bags.
There were a couple of people who did not respond and luckily they didn't just show up. Had they done that though, I'd have to turn them away at the door as there wouldn't have been any food or party bags for them. But I'd have done so in clean conscience, because I did explicitly ask for RSVPs.
I hope my experience can be of some reassurance to you 🌿But in the unlikely event that you get no responses, my advice is to cancel the party. And dont worry if anyone does show up - they were told to RSVP so it'll be entirely their own fault if they didn't. You can't rely on that "chance" anyway, I think it'd be horrible for you to pay so much money and for your daughter to get stood up like that at her own party. Just come up with an alternative idea for celebration, something she'll really enjoy. It's not ideal but better than being heartbroken that no one came.

Cancel it
say a family matter means can’t go ahead and do something nice with your child instead

they’re too young to really care and if parents are all hands off, then sod them

You’ve set yourself up for a pretty stressful scenario here. Generally class parties are organised weeks in advance and done over WhatsApp where you can easily follow up and count numbers and ask for dietary requirements. If you’ve sent paper invites, don’t know the parents, aren’t prepared to make an effort and talk to them, then how are you expecting this to actually happen?

If you plan something special for just her instead she honestly won’t care. They are too young at this age.

And dont worry if anyone does show up - they were told to RSVP so it'll be entirely their own fault if they didn't. You can't rely on that "chance" anyway, I think it'd be horrible for you to pay so much money and for your daughter to get stood up like that at her own party.

I cannot in all honesty understand how anybody would have the nerve to not bother replying to an invitation saying 'RSVP' and still turn up anyway - much less get offended at being turned away because their child has not been catered/allowed/paid for, owing to their not accepting the invitation.

Fair enough if they've never seen the invitation, but in that case, they wouldn't be turning up, of course.

I know that lots of people DO do this, but seriously?!

In reception and tbh until the latter half of primary school in general, children will NOT give their parents letters/invitations etc so it’s on the parents to regularly check their bags. Even then, they sometimes lose things. Very possible quite a few of the parents have no idea about the party at all. This is complicated by the fact you can’t ask any of them, is it because you send DC to breakfast/after school club or something?

I think this is a great opportunity to get a class WhatsApp going! You’ll potentially never have to go through anything like this again in the future years, as you’ll be able to drop s message into the group chat x

Sadly this is totally normal, it is SO stressful. 💐
For the 3 years we did whole class parties, the same parents didn’t bother to respond (despite reminders on class WhatsApp).
Then turned up on the day, and were visibly annoyed that their DC’s names weren’t on the list.

I'd be on the playground every drop off and pick up between now and the rsvp date accosting all the parents of girls in DDs class asking them.

I'd ask DD to point out who was in her class to find out who the parents are.

This highlights one of many reasons I opted to refrain from this type of party and just have close relatives cousins etc for birthday celebrations. I'm surprised teachers dont get frustrated with all the Invitations they are asked to distribute. If every child in a class had a birthday party for the majority of classroom friends the parents calendars would be dominated by birthday dates.🤦‍♀️