RSVP Card for Family Style Dining

Ours MAY be a family style reception...depending on the final count, we may not have a choice and be forced into it. But any family style or buffet served wedding I had been to never mentioned anything about the food on the response card....it just listed the date that the RSVP was requested to be returned and the number of guests attending.

Personally, I wouldn't add anything on it about food...we wont be.

I'm with Maltese. Ours was a family style/Italian reception as well. The food wasn't mentioned on the RSVP at all - just a line to write who was responding/how many "yes"s.

Okay. Thanks. So just keep the Yes and No response and delete everything else? I didn't know if it would be too empty. I haven't been to enough weddings to know what to do in that situation.

The most stuffily-proper traditional thing to do, is to include no R.s.v.p. card whatsoever, on the grounds that properly-reared polite folk know already that every invitation demands a prompt reply and are quite competent to provide themselves with the means of making such a reply, whether on their own stationery with their own stamp if the invitation was in writing, or by telephone if the invitation was telephoned, or by email if it was emailed, and so on.

If you assume that your friends and family actually do not know how to return a proper reply, and that you won't get all your R.s.v.p.'s back unless you send a card, then I have both good news and bad news for you. The good news is, you would probably be pleasantly surprised by how many people of all generations DO have the simple decency to provide a reply of their own free will and providence. The bad news is, that even if you do send cards there will still be some people you have to chase down to their dens and wrestle with for a reply.

The traditional wording for a formal reply is:

"Mr and Mrs Guest

accept with pleasure the kind invitation of

Mrs Hostess

to description-of-event

on date at time"

all neatly centred vertically and horizontally on the page. If you are supplying an R.s.v.p. card you can use this wording, with a check-box next to "accepts with pleasure", and an extra line with check-box stating "regrets to decline". You can put a blank line where the guest would write in "Mr and Mrs Guest", but I recommend that you actually write in the names yourself. That mitigates against folk's tendency to see the R.s.v.p. card as a tradable voucher and writing in whatever names they please. If you think that Mr Guest might accept even though Mrs Guest declines and want to be completely clear, then use two R.s.v.p. cards and fill one out for each individual guest. I do not recommend putting an asterix next to the guest's name, and annotating the card "*non transferable" in small text at the bottom, though I can certainly see in the light of other brides' experiences how one might be tempted to do so.

If it's family style, you don't need to put any food choice on the RSVP.

I wouldn't just leave open lines for ___adults and ____kids unless you're okay with everyone bringing their whole family.

I was not aware that family style dinner receptions required this degree of specificity. However, if you do need an exact -- or nearly exact -- meal count, I'd lay it out like this:

Please designate you meal choice(s):

Family Style Dinner Options:

Adult Meal(s):

____Beef Entree(s)

____Chicken Entree(s)

____Vegetarian Entree(s)

Children's Meal(s)/Ages 5 -12

____Beef Entree

____Chiclken Entree

____Vegetarian Entree

____Chicken Fingers Meal

I would leave out any mention of infants/toddlers not eating. The parents will either include them or not in the number of dinners specified.