Wedding RSVPs

[Eva90]

Advice please 🙏🏼

My wedding isn’t until July (we sent our invites in July 2023 as the venue isn’t local and we wanted people to have all the info to be able to book their hotels in advance).

I put a deadline of 31st November 2023. Our venue doesn’t need numbers until around 6 weeks before the wedding but I thought if I gave people almost a year to RSVP people may take forever to reply 😂

Anyway, I have 90% of the RSVPs for day guests. Although the wedding is still 6 months away, is it acceptable to send a gentle reminder email to those that haven’t responded considering they received the invite 6 months ago? A couple of them live abroad so I expected them to take a little longer given travel costs to consider etc.

The reason we would like to know is because we have a few evening guests that we would like to bump up to the day if we get any day guest declines. Should I send a gentle reminder or wait another month or two?

Yes a gentle reminder and a "I hope you had a nice christmas" would be fine

Sent ur invites way too far in advance

A gentle reminder is fine. It's ok to say why - "apologies for needing to know so far in advance but we are planning to send out a few more invitations once we know how many of our very nearest and dearest (that includes you) can make it. Very much hoping you will be able to join us, if there's a reason you can't know yet whether or not you'll be able to, could you let me know what your timescale will be for when you can decide?"

A variation of that us fine eg. Venue want a rough idea of numbers but I wouldn't admit to having a two tier invite system even if you are speaking to the top tier.

I really wouldn’t talk about your two tier system or ask people when they will know. You sent the invites a bit early really. If you must chase, I would just say, hope you had a good Christmas. Any idea whether you can make our wedding? We would love to see you there. Kind of thing.

You should have sent out a save the date in July and your invitations should be going out around February. I asked people to commit for March in December and I have found that hard work in terms of getting responses and my bridesmaid’s partner which I won’t go into now!!

Too late now really on the save the date point but I kind of think it’s too early to bother chasing people.

"31st November"?