rsvp Card Wording for Large Families with Mixed "+1" Amounts

I would cut out this part. You can just put the meal options and have people initial their meal selections.

M______________________________

CHICKEN_____ STEAK_____ VEGETARIAN_____

M______________________________

CHICKEN_____ STEAK_____ VEGETARIAN______

Is your cousin who you're allowing a plus one an adult? If so, she should receive her own invitation.

This is kind of how ours was formatted. We will fill in the second blank. We are having a buffet so we won't need meal selections.

__ of __ accept with pleasure

__ of __ regretfully decline

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Yes, she's an "adult" but only 18 and living at home with the rest of her family. I was thinking of just sending one invitation but it doesn't seem like it would work, but I didn't want to send two separate ones to the same address.

I will keep playing around with the wording, thanks!

The best way to go about this, IMO, would be to address the envelope to the people invited. For example, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Smith Family, or Mr. John Smith and Ms. Jane Doe. Then have your RSVP card look something like this:

M________________________

__of__ accept with pleasure

__of__regretfully decline

Please select an entree for each guest attending

Chicken_____Steak_____Vegetarian_____

Note: I would consider adding a children's option to your menu choices (if you are having kids at your wedding). A filled out RSVP, addressed to The Smith Family (family of 4) would look something like this:

M__The Smith Family____

4 of 4 accept with pleasure

__of 4 regretfully decline

Please select an entree for each guest attending

Chicken__2__Steak__1__Vegetarian__1__

I have the same issue! Some members of the family get plus ones (because they have long term SO’s) and some don’t. I was going to send separate invitations even though most of them still live with their parents because I think if I do blank of 8 attending they’ll be confused as to who’s invited.

Here’s what we did! And in the instance of giving one person in a large family a plus one, we told them personally so there was no confusion. And writing how many seats you have reserved for them is also helpful. Nobody has to question if the were given a plus one or not. We numbered the rsvps on the back so we could tell who was who

View Quoted Comment Invite the known significant others by name so avoid confusion. Also if you have a close relationships with these families just send them a text/ call “hey I wanted to extend a plus one to this cousin”. I sent an invite to house with 7 people invited, two were plus ones so I just sent a text and it worked totally fine. Maybe a bit informal but most people don’t really care about perfect formalities

We did "we have reserved ____ in your honor" and then a "_____ number attending" line. I numbered the back of our RSVPs so I know who they belong to.

View Quoted Comment So write The Smith Family and John Doe

Typically the cousin with the plus one should get her own invitation. I know when I send out my invitations I'll have a similar issue. My cousin(grown and married with a child) moved back home so she will have her own invitation. Her other 3 siblings(by then will all be adults) also all live at home. So I'm planning on doing a family invitation for the rest. Since technically there are two familes at the same address. Unless any of the other 3 siblings have serious long term SOs of course.

I think a separate invite for the cousin getting the +1 would be best, especially if they’re an adult I think you’re technically supposed to send them their own invite anyways (which we didn’t do but it worked out, we didn’t have too many people with adults over 18 at home). We also did we have reserved __ seats in your honor, # attending ___. Invites only went out a few days ago, and I thought it made everything super clear but we’ve still had someone ask if they had a plus one 🤷🏻‍♀️🙄

I would invite everyone separately. It would remove any confusion. Your other option would be to address the inner envelope with the first names of those invited. If it’s a long term boyfriend/girlfriend, you should know their name and be able to put it on there.

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There were multiple times were we sent out multiple invitations to the same address for cases like yours (adult children living in the home that were receiving a plus one). We did a buffet, so I'm not such help on the meal choices portion. I have seen it done where you have each person initial what entree they're choosing, and that seems to make the most sense.

This was our card:

On the back we had a place for dietary restrictions.

Anyone over 18 living in the same household as the parents should get their own invitation so you can specify if there is a plus one for that individual. If they are in a relationship then their partner should be included on the invitation by name.

As for selecting meals, we had each member of the family initial their meal choice. Ours was plated so the venue needed to know what each guest ordered.

I’m in the same situation as you! There are people in my FH’s family that still live with their parents, but have had a long term significant other, who are invited. So we have settled on

M_____________
we have reserved _ seats in your honor.
_Accept _Decline
_# of attending.

Thats just how how we are planning on doing it, because that’s how FH’s family said to do it for his side, even though we were going to send separate inv’s for adults living at home.

We do not have a meal option section.

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Maybe you can send 1 invite but include 2 RSVP cards if you think there's not enough room on one for a family of 4

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Okay I have a question related to this.. Let's say you have 5 seats in their honor because of significant others.. but their SO can't come, so they only put 4 in number attending spot. How did you know which of the 4 were attending??

View Quoted Comment They have told us who can come and who isn't. And since we aren't doing a plated meal it doesn't really matter, they are all eating off the buffet. We saved 5 seats for a friend and his family but it's only him and his daughter coming and he let us know.

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We're having a plated meal, but I'm not sure if the caterer needs to know what every single specific person wants or if they just need an approximate count of how many of what. We haven't even picked the menu yet.. or sent the save the dates. I'm just preemptively worrying about stuff I guess lol

I have a lot of FH's cousins on the guest list, all are older with children. The children are invited but FMIL did not include names of all 50 children on the guest list. So I'm worried that a family of 5, mom dad and 3 children, will RSVP that 3 out of 5 are coming but I won't know which child is attending. If I don't know which one then how do I make a seating chart?

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I would reach out to the family then. That's really the only way to know who is coming.

This was extremely helpful everyone. I'm in a weird spot where we aren't giving plus ones for those not in serious relationships (we already have a guest count way over what our goal was).