RSVP Card Etiquette

I think its a great idea

I think it's a great idea as well!

A lot of brides on here have used: "We've Reserved X Seats for You" on their RSVP card. It can cause unnecessary drama if you don't. I did it because my FH's family is known to bring extras and we can't afford it or fit them all in the reception location.

A friend of mine did that and she said it went really well. They wrote "We've reserved X seats in your honor."

I am doing the seats reserved for you it's not tacky I think it helps guests. You will still get some that try to add more but you just tell them no.

That is a good idea, I may use it myself!

I think I am also using this...we have some big families for 5 or 6 and I am worried some of their kids (in their 20's) will try to bring their BF or GF...not happening for $85 a person!

Yup, we did, "We have reserved ___ seat(s) in your honour." I asked the lady at the stationery store and she says it's OK and socially appropriate.

If this is wrong, I don't want to be right. This is what I did!

I did ___ seats have been reserved in your honor

Then when they are marking who is coming it says

__ of ___ happily accepts (or something like that)

That is what we did too. No issues (yet).

We actually filled in the names and seat numbers prior to printing:

Please reply by March 26, 2014

Name _______________________

____ Seats reserved in your honor

Able to attend___

or

Cannot attend ___

Special dietary considerations:

__________________________

For more information, please visit:

http://xxxxxxxxxxx.ourwedding.com/

Originally, I wanted to do that. Add that little note about the seats. However, I will say that only one person out of 200+ invites tied to add her kids until my sister in law straightened her out. Just saying. You just need to know who you are including in your list. What are their personalities. I really though all of FH's family would do that but only one tried. I am Jewish and my mom wouldn't let me do anything other than a blank card that said "Please Rely by February 14" because apparently "Jews know what to do." Oh moms! Just make sure you number the back of your cards and have a corresponding number list with your guests. I got a few back with no names and that helped me figure out who they were.

I would do the "We've reserved X seats for you" as well, but just to warn you, my aunt and uncle did this and people crossed out the number and wrote in their own number to accommodate even more people. I'm sure that's rare though...but I never thought people would be THAT bold, lol.

@Pamela people can be such jerks! We like many others did "We have reserved ____ seats in your honor" and I wish we had done ____ of ____ can attend but didn't do that. Oh well, we'll figure it out!

I'm doing it, but I found out it was actually really complicated. FH's cousins are old enough that they might want to bring boyfriends but they aren't old enough to get their own invite so I didn't know what to do and just put the number for the family. I also forgot to include FH's parents foster daughter on there but I called them afterwards and told them oops! I forgot this, please disregard the 2 on your invite. I'm still really hoping they choose not to bring her because of the alcohol at the wedding, but it is not my call

This is an example of how mine looked. The ONLY part they have to write in is how many are attending or declining

I really like the __of__ can attend. I am already planning on doing the __seats reserved in your honor. i'm going to remember this for when we start invites. Thanks all! Gotta love the advice you get on WW.

I did it, and felt no shame. Otherwise people give themselves plus-ones, or they decide to be jokesters and say that 100 people in their party will attend.

I think you should write a number in pencil on each card, and keep a corresponding number on your guest list spreadsheet. Surprisingly, people often don't fill in their own names on the response cards, so having them coded lets you figure out where the card came from.

Another alternative, which we did, is to ask people to RSVP via phone or email. That way, we could nip things like random plus-ones in the bud, answer any questions they had about the event, and know who had RSVPed. But I think that works best for smaller weddings.

I skipped this line on our RSVP cards. I'm afraid that people will decide they can bring anyone they want to fill the number of seats they've been allocated. We've already had one of FH's aunts call my FMIL and say her husband can't come so she's bringing her granddaughter instead (invites haven't even gone out yet). We're having an adults-only reception, so we didn't want people adding children to fill "their" seats.

ETA: I don't think it's tacky I just didn't think it would work for our group of invitees.

We did the: We reserved ____ seat(s) in your honor. We are going to fill them in for our guests. This is our RSVP

Tacky or not- we can have 200 guests in our venue and have 212 on our guest list so that is just how it has to be!!