Guests late to the table...

You tell them, sorry but the RSVP deadline was August 5th. We would have loved to have you celebrate with us, but unfortunately we cannot add any additional people with this late of notice. We can let you know if anyone cancels last minute and you can take their seat and meal.

And just in case you’re worried about it.. It isn’t rude to enforce your RSVP deadline. It is rude to RSVP late.

View Quoted Comment Thank you that's a great idea!!!

Oh hell no. "We cannot accommodate late RSVP's. Look forward to celebrating with you soon". Don't give excuses or reasons. No is a full sentence.

Agree with Jacks. No is definitely a full sentence. Although, you do not owe them an explanation. We had the same thing happen to use, with a few late RSVP, but we still had room to accommodate. Whatever you do, do not add additional tables. They should have RSVP by the deadline.

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This is what I would say. We are definitely going to be enforcing our RSVP deadline.

When your RSVP deadline first passed, did you reach out to those you hadn't heard from to remind them that you needed a reply? If so, and people are just now getting back to you weeks later, I agree with the previous comments that I would tell them that you can't accommodate late RSVPs at this point. Otherwise, if you never reached out to them after the RSVP deadline, I would maybe try to accommodate them (since people often forget to RSVP by the deadline and need to be reminded). If your vendors don't allow for changes at this point, then it's totally valid to tell them that you can't add them this close to the wedding.

View Quoted Comment This is what I would do also. If you did reach out to them when they missed the deadline, I would definitely tell them sorry, but you cannot accommodate them this late, as final numbers have already been given to your vendors. If you didn’t reach out to them to remind them, then you could try to accommodate them by getting more tables and chairs and see if your caterer can increase the number of meals. However, you definitely are not required to do this. It would be perfectly within your right to say no.

We added extra tables for that purpose. We comedically called it the overflow. So in our culture everyone in your circle is invited. We had a rsvp list and most of our guest rsvpd. But I knew for a fact that we would have extra people to attend so we added three tables to accommodate that.

View Quoted Comment That's a good idea, wish I had thought of that earlier. We did finally add an extra table, luckily it was easy to accommodate with the vendor.

View Quoted Comment Oh that’s good. If we were having our wedding in my home country the entire village would be invited so my mother wanted to make sure that I ordered that here in the states and had extra tables. People will always come late are people will always come who didn’t RSVP Which really doesn’t bother me I really wanted everybody to come have a good guest experience.

I would accommodate everyone if possible, but if it's not possible to add more tables or food at this point, just let them know you aren't able to accommodate bc the deadline was aug 5.

Good point to contact everyone you can that didn't RSVP.

I did add guests to my guest list who rsvp late. They called me about coming to the wedding (they simply forgot due to life) and bc I had already talked to my venue about late rsvp and I was able to add them it. My venue made it easy and simple for me to do it. You can talk to your vendors about it and see what they say. If you can not accommodate them, you can let your guests know that you are not able to accommodate them.

I'm sticking to my RSVP due date!! I'm m not accountable for late brain cells.
Happy Planning

View Quoted Comment 🤣😂 that's too true

No one prepares us for this! We had the same thing happen. I told them in such lack of their conservation that we are sorry but the rsvp deadline was this date and that whenever didn’t give their taco was already marked no. The deadline is the deadline. We can’t just let everyone in whenever they want. That wouldn’t be fair to everyone else if they did that last minute. Wedding take planning and if they can’t plan then it’s their damn fault

I gave myself a buffer. Have reached out to everyone who did not rsvp and they have until September 7th to reply or else we will not have food for them. I included prestamped and labeled rsvp cards in my invites all they had to do was put a number for how many or check mark a no and pop it in the mail. Those who never responded need only respond to a simple text. If they cant do one of those 2 things then they arent getting food. I find it so disrespectful when people cant rsvp (of course then you have those on the flip side......had one guest rsvp yes, contact me to tell me her husband is diabetic and shes gluten free......buffet so not a lot of wiggle room there but I told her I would talk to the caterer.......and now they arent coming because they have to go dog sit their daughters dog in a different state?????).

View Quoted Comment I agree it is very disrespectful, it's not like they are coming to a birthday party. There are vendors that need to be alerted on who is coming. I sent out mail in invites with the postage on the response cards and they kept asking if they needed to send the invite back... no I just spent money for the stamps for the fun of it.

View Quoted Comment Oh my gosh yes the cost of stamps is ridiculous! I also have found that there were several people whose invite never showed up, way to go post office loosing my mail that had 2 stamps each and was not supposed to go through the machines. So glad I spent that extra money. 🙄