Meal cards and Invitiations.

With your invitation, include an RSVP card— one per invite, along with an envelope that is stamped and addressed back to you. If guests need to select their meal, include the meal options on this RSVP car with a line or a box and include a line to the effect of “please initial your meal choice below” . A traditional RSVP card will also have a line above this for guests to choose accepts or regrets and # of guests attending

View Quoted Comment I’m confused, why wouldn’t it be more than one RSVP card if there’s more than one person in the household? How can they all use one card?

Here’s a good example of one filled out. If there’s more than two people they would fill in the top line with all their names, mark how many people will be attending, and then initial everyone’s meal choice. You won’t want to keep up with an RSVP card for every single person attending.

First let me ask you, are you doing multiple meal choices and are kids invited to the wedding?
If yes to both then what you do or at least what I did was added the meal choices to the RSVP card. You only need one meal choice card/RSVP per invitation. Below is a picture of my RSVP card.
Next part of your question, it depends on how you are sending you invitation. I had mine in a big envelope with a details card then the RSVP with its own self address stamped envelope so people could send it back easier.
Dose this answer your questions?

View Quoted Comment

I think you're confused on RSVP cards and place cards. They aren't the same thing. The RSVP card goes in the invitation, it's for the entire household. They mark on there who will be attending. If you're having a plated meal, you can put your entree options on the RSVP card and the guests will initial next to their selection. They'll mail the RSVP card back to you so that you can get an accurate headcount and numbers for meals.

Once you get all of your RSVPS, you'll print/write/order place cards with each person's name and table number. On that card, you will designate which meal that guest chose so that the serving staff at your reception knows what to bring them. Some people purchase stickers for the place cards. Chicken stickers for the chicken entree, cow stickers for the beef entree, etc. I think that's the easiest option.

View Quoted Comment Yes, that’s why you have them initial which meal they select, so you know who wants what (instead of initials you could request they write their names next to their meal choice). I suppose theoretically you could send an rsvp car per person but this doesn’t really happen, likely because it wastes paper and increases postage /may require larger envelopes , plus you pay per card when printing , so the cost would add up. Also because it is standard for a full family to be on one rsvp, that’s how most guests would reply— a couple would be likely to assume the extra was an accident, and only fill out one and toss the other.

Once you HAVE the selection, if you’re making escort cards with seat assignments and meal choice for the venue, then you would make one placecard per guest

View Quoted Comment This makes more sense now, I’m not confused with place cards/RSVPS, I was confused on how many RSVP cards go into an invitation. I was thinking you needed an RSVP card for every individual person addressed in the invitation. For example, my cousins and aunt/uncle live together, I thought I needed to include an RSVP for all three cousins and my aunt and uncle, so five RSVP cards total.
What happens when you invite 4 people in one invitation and one person can’t come? How do they write off that? Our meals are plated and we’ll be listing each meal on the cards, along with a kids meal, will they just intital next to the kids meal?

They write who is coming on the line on the RSVP. The 1st pic someone posted has that line on it. Also, you can tell by the initials on the food choices. If only 3/5 are coming, then there will just be 3 sets of initials.

View Quoted Comment So what happens when an Invatation gets sent to a family and not everyone can make it is they will just list out the names of who is able to come.
Pictured below is one of my RSVP cards where that happened. A family of 4, the dad and older son aren't able to make it but mom and younger son are.
Somthing to think about, where others say to initial the choices, imo, I think it better to have people write out their names. From experience, I'm from a family of 6, all of us had the same first and last initial, if you didn't know our middle names you couldn't tell us apart when initiating things (SH).
Is there anything else you're still unsure of?

If you are having a plated meal, you can mention it on the RSVP card. Most just say the protein name so "chicken" "vegetarian" "kids meal" and you say something like "initial by your entree choice".