rsvp

The date the invitation should be sent out is counting backwards 6-8 weeks. For a September 1st wedding, for example, they should be mailed or handed out in person no earlier or later than July 7-21. A reply due date is counted back 4 weeks, so from Sept 1, it would be August 1 with a week to contact anyone who did not reply, starting on the afternoon of the 1st. While some will reply early, a majority will send them at the last minute, and it is inappropriate to remind them before that date in any way. Also, when you call guests who didn’t reply to confirm their attendance, you do not hang up the phone until they give you a yes or no on the spot.


By sending invites before the 6-8 weeks you are creating 2 scenarios: guests lose and forget the information because it is given so early and you send the message that you are B Listing which is considered a faux pas and are looking for seat fillers and those people in the second group would generally rather not be invited. That may not be your original intention. What’s done is done. Don’t stress until August when your actual due date arrives. There’s honestly nothing you can do before then.

View Quoted Comment Thank you that is super helpful! ❤️

Don’t stress! The majority of people will wait until closer to the RSVP deadline. About 1/3 of our guests RSVP’ed right away, then the remaining 2/3 didn’t respond until the week RSVPs were due.

Your invitations did go out a bit early. While it’s a courtesy to RSVP asap, deadline or no deadline, unfortunately, most people tend to wait. Sometimes it's legitimate since the kind of conflicts you can’t avoid, ie work deadline or trip, etc. are more likely to come up as you get closer to the date. That’s also why invitations should not go out and reply dates not be set too early.

In my experience a month ahead gives you more than enough time to chase down replies, even with the caterer, seating plan, and place cards or chart left to do.
You’re presumably dealing with people you like or love so personally I would give a grace period of a few days to account for mail delay and then start calling. Sometimes people have genuine issues, could be medical, personal, or work related. There were one or two like that at our wedding and we made every effort to accommodate, though they let us know what was going on ahead of time. Most caterers don’t actually need final numbers until the week before and can add a few guests in last minute without penalty.

If you just sent them out at the end of June, it’s very likely that the invitations haven’t even been delivered to a significant number of guests yet. And if they had the option to reply by mail, it’ll be longer still. That in combination with the fact that most people wait for the deadline (and some will almost certainly miss it).