Rsvps for out of town wedding

This is a know your crowd thing. Some people refuse to travel but most have no issues at all with traveling and rsvping as they are asked to. The ones who are the subject of horror stories are in the minority and don’t care about courtesy and manners.

I've honestly never heard of these stories in real life. Typically, when your RSVP deadline passes, you call all the people who have not RSVPed to get their response. Sometime they forgot to RSVP, other times the card got lost in the mail, and sometimes people feel bad RSVPing no so they don't send it back but will tell you when you directly ask. If you reach out to everyone who hadn't RSVPed by the deadline, you shouldn't really run into the surprise guest, local or not.

I agree with pp. Ring them all after the date and find out what is happening with them and you shouldn't have any surprises

All the comments here are spot on. I haven't heard of the scenario you are talking about either. But one thing that could make life easier depending on the size of your wedding, is to have everyone's email so you can email out a reminder to those who haven't RSVPed. This could be faster than reaching out individually by phone. Once you get a confirmation one way or the other, you should be good. I hope you aren't talking about a situation where people RSVP "no" but still show up.

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Ha! It would be even crazier to actively RSVP “no” but still show up. Now that’s something I’ve never heard of.

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Thank goodness!

It has happened! Guests assume that they can easily be taken cared of last minute when it's not lol. Has your deadline for RSVP already passed? If not then make sure to follow up for those who said no and haven't answered yet. Always follow up by a phone call with those who said no and haven't responded. And let them know that their answers are final if they say no to make things easier not only for you and your FH, but for the vendors as well with seating and dinner arrangements for day of.

Yes! I booked my hotel and made travel plans and totally spaced on the RSVP to my friends wedding! Thankfully she knows me well enough to know I would never miss her wedding lol and she called me to just confirm I was coming lol definitely call people who haven’t responded yet lol

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I think I'm in a similar boat. About half of my guests are people that wouldn't miss it for the world (unless there are some very extreme circumstances), so if I don't get a response I would plan to follow up. For the other half my parents think I should take a more passive approach and not worry about chasing them down, and they're willing to "gatekeep" if necessary.

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Fortunately I haven't sent out invites yet, so I'm not up against that deadline yet. What I'm currently trying to figure out is 1) whether to take the venue up on their offer for a larger space, and 2) what meal options to offer (1 choice, 2 choices, buffet, etc.), since that would need to go on the RSVP cards.

It also depends culturally and the location you’re having it at. I can tell you my brother had his wedding in the Philippines since a lot of his wife’s family is there. They invited 500 people, around 350 people said RSVPed ‘Yes’, but over 400 people showed up. So, they had 50-100 non invited people show up. This is a very typical Philippine wedding thing to do. Friends/family will invite their friends/family without telling the couple. For this reason, most Filipino weddings (in the Philippines) are buffet style and they always have a lot of food. I think if you had a typical American wedding in the US, this would not happen.

View Quoted Comment If you’re having a destination wedding, I would send out your invites earlier than recommended for a local wedding and get those RSVPs earlier than what is typically recommended for local. Call/message those that have not responded just to make sure. For a local wedding, I’d send invites like 8-12 weeks before the event. For a destination, I’d do 12-16 weeks before. I have my RSVP date set 6 weeks before the event, too.

I've never actually heard of people showing up after they've RSVPd "no" or never reacted to the invitation. BUT I've been to a few family weddings where guests spontaneously brought additional and unannounced guests or children, and expected the couple to accommodate them on the spot. My cousin threw a spectacular fit at her wedding after our uncle came with his cards friends in tow, apparently he told them it was ok and that they should enjoy the free booze... I'm dreading it a little, that something like this may happen at our wedding.

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Gotcha! I just got married this weekend. We had an intimate backyard wedding and we had two guests added LAST MINUTE. Which was TOTALLY fine because it was only just two and I didn't have to rearrange seating. Again it does happen haha. So depending on how many people you plan on inviting you should just have extra seating just in case. The only stressful thing about this is if you do a la carte for dinner then that surprise guest won't have a meal prepped for them. I'm not sure how that works if they make extra? So, discuss that with your vendor As a guest at other weddings I LOVE buffet style! But again that is if it is within your budget too.