To think parents should reply to their kids' party invitations

[apostropheisback]

Sent out invitations nearly 3 weeks ago for party next week. Three responses for 10 children invited. And they all go to the same nursery, so it's not as if they don't know the child or haven't been around... I put e-mail and phone on the RSVP.

Is this normal? How am I supposed to plan food / party bags / prizes etc?

When they go to school though they do have friends who I don't necessarily know the parents. Not all parents also pick up and drop off at school so would never see them. The child could still be one of his best mates though.

I do agree though that if it is a massive party and your child is not paticularly close to the child in question it is very easy to pin the invite to the fridge and then forget all about it.

We did invite all of ds's class this year only because there is only 18 children in the class and didn't want anyone to feel left out.

"Please let us know if you can make it, so that we can make sure we have enough tea and party bags for everyone."

perfect

It may be parental rudeness, but it may also be parent filling in form and child putting it in school bag and forgetting about it. I prefer invites with an address on so I can post the reply, or phone number, but a surprising number just have party venue and no contact details for parents if party not at the house.

after reading many a thread on this i decided to put 'RSVP to Thrifty by xdate please' and included home telephone, mobile and email address on ds's invites. we invited 18 kids, only 1 didn't reply (or turn up for that matter!). so i'd say that was fairly successful. we only gave 2 weeks notice of the party with the rsvp date being a few days before the party.

Thrifty, I did all that too and still had all those non-replyers and non-attenders.

Huge thanks Mazzy, really appreciate that.

That's exactly why i asked... am so totally new at all this, don't want to get it wrong before I even start!

Glad we now have a general consensus..