to expect people to RSVP to party invites

[gingernutlover]

nursery gave out dd's ivites 3 weeks ago, her party is in 4 days time.

Half of the parents havent bothered to reply

do i assume they arent coming or assume they might?

being a day nursery we don't bump into other parents much, theres a couple that i see regularly but they have replied already. So i cant ask the parents.

The invite had my phone number on it or a slip that could be sent back into nursery

okay, so if i sent out little reminders liek this? Or do you think it comes a across as rude?

hi _

We are making final preparations for E's birthday party which is this saturday (12th Sept 11-1).

I know how busy everyone is and how invites can get lost so please could you let me know by Friday if is coming or not?

Many thanks

Gingernutlover plus my phone number

and maybe put a little reply slip on bottom yeah,? Then they have chance to phone me or tick a box and give it to nursery

I put a note on DS's nursery window - "X's party this weekend - please reply if you haven't already or else there'll be no food for you!!!"

with a jokey background

but then the nursery was only 16 kids and very small so I knew they'd all see it!

LOL, thats funny!

I would but don't think Nursery will let me stick up signs, plus we havent invited everyone LOL.

I only got 6 RSVP's for my wedding out of 100 invites sent and they where all catered for, it was very annoying to see all that food go to waste!

No, YANBU. It used to happen all the bloody time when my DDs were first at school. In the end I left it at putting an RSVP by date, and if I knew the parent concerned I would remind them - something like "oh did x bring home DDs party invite etc?"

If not, I would make up extra party bags as inevitably they would be the kids who would bloody turn up. Just rude, rude, rude. A 30 second phone call and they couldn't even be bothered.

6 and thats is sooooooooo rude, much worse than a few kids not comign to a 4th party.

This drives me batty tbh. Then I did it myself this summer .. dd got an invitation for a classmate's party before the end of the summer term, but the party wasn't until the end of August. I didn't know when we received the invitation whether or not dd would be able to go, so I told the Mum I'd get back to her. I never did. I sought her out on the first day of school and apologised, she was really nice about it. I was mortified to have forgotten, especially since it's a bugbear of mine.

jojoagogo - that is shocking - how rude!!

I find it also helps to put your email on the invite, I got a lot of rsvps to dd1's last birthday that way - sent at 3am when mums were obviously getting on touch of their to-do pile.

But it is really rude and really annoying and yanbu (don't get me started on party givers who don't thank you for presents ...)

gingernut, that reminder is perfectly reasonable, not rude at all. I would leave an email address as well. As it is a nursery and there can be a lot of working parents, they sometimes find it easier to reply by email. Good luck for the party.

Another thought...sometimes the invitations don't actually reach the parent because they get lost in the handover/on the way home/screwed up at the bottom of the bookbag etc.

On our wedding invites we put down our address 2 mobile numbers and a email address and still only got 6 rsvp back! I think some people just really can not be bothered!

a wedding really is different and people should know that! It's bad enough not replying to a kids party but a wedding? You have every right to use the pissed off icon!

people do understand what rsvp means- they are just rude. I have no advice to offer. I like the yes no suggestion. But even then people just won't bother *boiled egg and toast soldiers. I wonder about manners sometimes- are we loosing the plot as a society when someone gives us a social invite and we just can't be BOTHERED to reply