rsvp deadline for destination wedding

I live in Gatlinburg and I’ll just say, while technically your wedding is in our “dead” season, we have seen double to three times the tourism lately compared to normal years because people are coming out after being quarantined for months. The earlier your guests can get hotels booked, and the earlier you can get confirmation of ANYTHING, the better off you’ll be. I had my RSVP a month and a half before I really needed it, and I ended up taking an extra three weeks to track down and call 95% of my guest list who were too lazy to RSVP on our site. We, also, are having a morning-after brunch and I’ve essentially told my guests that if they didn’t RSVP, they aren’t welcome.



Also, as a side note: if any of your guests are planning to fly into Knoxville, they’ve been canceling a ton of flights, so make sure they keep an eye on that! My MOH had four different flights cancelled for my wedding.

View Quoted Comment Good to know! When FH and I booked our hotel for the weekend back in April they were already booked! That’s why I had hoped people would have taken our advice but they didn’t. Sigh. I’ll be sure to let everyone know again about what you are seeing up there. Luckily no one will need to fly except my mom and she will most likely fly in early to Nashville where we live and drive up. Everyone else will drive. We have a small guest list of only 38 but still a pain to get them to respond I’m sure.

I would probably give yourself at least a week. We gave ourselves two weeks just because we didn't know if anyone who didn't RSVP would respond right away.

I think that sounds like a good timeline.

View Quoted Comment Ok good. Thank you!

View Quoted Comment Do you think I should make the deadline earlier? Like last week of January? They should receive invites by December 8 at latest.

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I would probably give yourself two weeks to collect answers from those who didn't RSVP.

I would give yourself at least 2 weeks to track down people who haven’t responded.

View Quoted Comment There comes a time when the earlier you set your RSVP date, the fewer will respond, the more you will have to chase down, and the more you chase down will tell you, I do not know yet. Many jobs do their work and time off schedules no more than 4 weeks ahead, and the same with school exams ( high school and college), term papers, and sports.
If your guests are mostly retired, or have very flexible work schedules, fine. If they work in direct human services, medical, retail, they may not know til 28-30 days out.
A welcome event like a pancake meal is a highly flexible thing. Tell them you cannot give a count until 3 weeks out. You have such a small number beyond your immediate family, you can start calling on the due date, and contact all in a few days.

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Got it. I'll move the deadline up a week then. Thank you!

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Great, thank you!