Today is our RSVP date. Just to update other bride's wondering what everyone else's RSVPs looked like. We sent our invites out April 26, our RSVP date was June 10 for our July 20 wedding. So guests had a little over 6 weeks to respond. We have two hotel blocks, our main one has 40 rooms booked so far.
109 - Yes
62 - No
61 - No Response
We anticipated a lot of "no" responses, we invited over half our guest list from out of state and two out of the country. A lot were older relatives & several were in the military. I estimated cost for 175 people (but assumed closer to 150 would go). I think our final count will be around 120-130, so I wasn't too far off. We had a few surprise "no" responses that sucked, but a few "yes" responses that we are excited about. We also invited full families, and a lot of parents decided to come without their children. I was in a wedding in 2017 with 75 guests, and thought it was a nice size so we are happy with our final count.
I have 10 days until our final count is due for our guest transportation (we are reserving 55 person buses so need to decide if we need 2 or 3) and our final count for our bar. I'll start reaching out tomorrow (I know I should give people a few days but I don't want to waste any time).
We sent addressed & stamped RSVP cards with every invitation, and each RSVP card also gave the option to do it online. So we made it as easy as possible for our guests. I'd say around 25% used the online option, the rest used the paper option. I was surprised, we have a lot of younger guests and they all opted to use the paper response.
I'm also from a more traditional family that values traditional etiquette, my fiance not as much. So it really threw me when people RSVPed "no" and didn't send a present or even just a card (or didn't even write an apology note in the section our wedding website allows). I'd be horrified if we said no and never sent anything. Obviously we didn't invite people for the gifts, but even a card saying they are sorry they can't make it would have been nice! We have 84 total gifts on our Amazon registry, with my shower & the few that have already sent wedding gifts, we have received 30 (so 54 remaining).
Wish me luck contacting our 61 guests that don't feel the need to respond! The good thing is it's only 25 households so not truly 61 people, but still! Don't expect people to respond and leave yourself time to contact them! I'm glad I had these forums to prepare me for that.
