Destination wedding and hometown party....

So I plan on having a destination wedding in the bahamas AND a party (not formal reception) back home. So I plan on inviting everyone (over 250 people) to both the destination and the party (assuming 30 are going to come to the destination but then again my family is wacky and I never know)....my question is after I send out my save the dates and before my formal invitations what is the best way to know who is going to attending the wedding in the Bahamas?? Can I do something like an RSVP on the webpage or is that cheesy? I am just sending out the STD WAY ahead of time to let people plan and save monet. I want to plan rooms travel ect as soon as possible (prior to the usual few months before the wedding). I guess then doing the formal invite is useless.....hmmm I need help.....big help

I sent out my invites first about 9 months in advance and then I sent out a reminder postcard to remind everyone to RSVP. I just sent out the RSVP postcards but you can send them farther out if you want to know earlier. It has been working out nice because everyone knew all the information right away and people have been RSVPing from the beginning. Also I did my RSVP on the website or put a phone number. My cousin did it also for a wedding here at home. I saved the extra postage money for the postcards. No one has complained about the RSVP, so I think it worked out well. Plus there is a comments section for people to write a note as they RSVP. GOOD LUCK!!!

I say phone calls work best. My flaky family will never cooperate with RSVPs, lol

first we told family & friends over a year in advance we were planning a DW.

we booked the resort in november and sent out STD postcards to everyone.

on the STD we put a link to our wedding website, so they could informally RSVP (about 8 people have so far...so it's not effective/reliable)

we did not book a group rate quote for travel plans as the costs were way too high...so we explained the reasoning on our website, plus through word of mouth & email and a few phone calls

we mailed out our formal invitation about 3 weeks ago (so about 2 months in advance), the rsvp is for the formal AHR only.

so far we have 31 guests booked for mexico, and 36 for the AHR (most of those people who rsvp'd right away for the AHR are not coming to mexico), and besides family most of the people going to mexico aren't coming to the AHR.

what i have found through talking to other people as well...it's very inconsistent what people will do. some people have had great response with their wedding website, we haven't. i have so much info on their that if anyone asks i just tell them to read the site.

good luck.

Hey JenArge that is exactly what I am doing. I am going to send out my STDs and on there has the website info and instructions to please RSVP by a certain time. I am trying to save on postage and materials. I don't think it will be cheesy. I love my website (still under construction) and I think I have made it user friendly and fun so that guests can go on and check things out and see everything that is going on. Because I knew what I wanted to do I did a test run with my sister's baby shower invites (all done online) and many people did RSVP (some later that specified date) but RSVP'd anyway. Well, good luck.

Thanks for the great advice! I'll let you know how it goes. I'm going on Monday to the Bahamas to book a venue and hopefully have the STD out soon!