Need Reasons for RSVP

Well you shouldn't even be sending invites out until March, so you certainly wouldn't be able to have an RSVP date then!

As annoying as it is, people just don't plan ahead like that, so they are less likely to RSVP 2-3 months before a wedding date. I'm sure your close friends already know yes/no but the extended guests won't and it's not fair to ask them to RSVP by some absurdly early date.

And you won't need much time to track down people that don't respond. 1-2 weeks maximum is my guess.

Tell him the earlier the RSVP date the more likely someone will have something come up and not be able to make it to your wedding. That means a no show and you just put money down the drain for their food, drink, seating...everything.

RSVP date should be between 4-8 weeks out depending on when you need your final headcount in. For reference, mine are due 7 weeks out because my venue needs headcount at 4 weeks and I know my family will need to be hunted down.

I would say to do it early to get a count of how many people are coming so you know how much food you will need and chairs

If you set a date of February, that means you're sending them in January; IMO, that's too early for an invitation for a wedding in May. A lot can change in 3 months. Did you send out STDs? or does everyone know the date of the wedding?

How early do you need your final numbers for the caterer/venue? Add two weeks to that, and make that your RSVP date. So, if you need final numbers in by May 6th, make your RSVP date April 15th or 22nd. That will give you to to three weeks to hunt down anyone who forgot to send it, or who's response got lost in the mail.

The people who won't RSVP won't RSVP regardless if the date is feb 1st or May 1st. As Mrs2be said, save yourself the headache of an early date compounding the no shows.

@OrginalKD : True, I'm still getting RSVP via text . LOL

Hi date twin! Having an RSVP date that early means that people are more likely to change their answers after they've officially RSVPed because a lot can come up in three months.

People don't know that early. They have to request time off work, make arrangements for pets/kids and their hotel, etc. People are procrastinators. At most, I would say 30 days before the wedding. That gives you 1-2 weeks to track people down before you have to have final counts in to vendors.

I think a super early rsvp date will cause you to have to hunt down more people, because they just won't respond at all if they don't know yet.

@Zaz. Our caterer needs final counts like 5 days before the event haha so I thought May 1 was more than enough.

Our guests are like 95% in town and I am confident about 90% are coming anyways regardless of invites.

He was like "our STDs should be out already". Dear lord.

If you make everyone rsvp that early, you're going to have a lot of RSVPs changing in the 15 weeks between your deadline and your wedding. 15 weeks early is WAY TO EARLY.

Why are you doing invite a year out? Definitely too soon for the invite to go out.

Four - three months prior to the date if you don't send STDs

two month prior to the date if you do send STDs

Also, the RSVP date should be roughly about two weeks or so earlier then when your venue requires their final numbers for RSVP hunt downs and mail delivery time (some people see the RSVP date and assume that is the final date to put the RSVP in the mail - meaning it gets to you about 3 - 5 days after).

@B.roo - We are not ordering early. We were designing it and putting some info. I don't plan to order it until later this year.

RSVP dates should not be random. Look at your contracts to see when the final numbers are due to your venue/caterer (they should be the last ones). Take a week back from that (to give you time to follow up with people who don't RSVP or RSVP late). Then make your RSVP date 3 weeks from that date (so 4 weeks from whenever your final numbers are due).

Out wedding is July 16th. We sent invites out the last week of April(closer to May) with an RSVP deadline by June 1st because we had to make a seating chart and place cards with each persons meal choice on it since we are having a seated plated meal and we knew we would have to track down some of the guest list.

we ended up having to contact over half the list to get answers/dinner choices.

we just got the last bit of information from the last one a few days ago so it took us a little over two weeks to track everyone down and now we have about less than 4 weeks to make individual place cards for each person.

Also more than half our guest list is OTT guests and we wanted to make sure they had plenty of time to find accommodations.

Our final numbers are due 1 week before the wedding. so we set the RSVP date for 5 weeks prior to that to allow time. So Six weeks total from the wedding date for us.

I got married May 21st of this year. We sent invites out in mid March and our RSVP date was April 18th (due to contract dates). The April 18th RSVP date gave me a week to track people down before numbers were due.

I would definitely not have a March 1 or January 1 RSVP date. People will forget and you will get tons of no shows thus costing you extra $$$.

Send them out around April 1st, March 20th at the earliest. Set your RSVP by date at May 1st. That way people can check about time off of work (lots of workplaces won't tell you if you got the time off until 30 days or less before hand.) and make arrangements.

On May 2, you start CALLING (not texting, not FBing, CALLING!!!) people who haven't responded to get an answer. If you never get an answer, you count them as a YES in case they show up.

Problem solved. Your fiancé is really wanting to end up with either a lot of RSVPs for yes with lots of no shows because people thought they could get off and then couldn't, or lots of nos, where people show up because they didn't know if they could come and then learned they could.

Either way, it's a really bad idea and poor planning.

If you make your RSVP date too early, people will say yes, and stuff will come up and they won't be able to (or they will flat out forget.

Figure out when you will have to give numbers (I would guess May 1-7th.)

Your invites should be going on March 21st ish. You can not have an RSVP before that - when you do the invites or the RSVP too early, people forget about it or they don't know if they can since it is something SO far out.

Make sure OOT guests know the date so they can plan, everyone else needs NO MORE than 8 weeks.