Response dates

Christa,

The STD/RSVP process was the most annoying thing for me. We sent out STDs 9 months in advance. Then we sent an e-mail out to have people RSVP on our website 8 months before just to get an idea of the number of people that were thinking about attending. We got about 10 responses, not even the whole wedding party responded. I know, no need since we knew they were going.... but you get the point, people really just don't make this a priority. Then the RSVPs... don't get me started! We're having a plated dinner, so I needed the RSVPs... Half of our friends never sent it back (wasted our stamps!). Most of them I had to e-mail them the dinner choices and had them choose that way.

My advice is to go as high as you can in the number you are budgeting for, and at least you will have that covered. If I had to do it again, I would have saved myself the stamps and enabled the online RSVP for the REAL RSVPs.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions Karla! I have a myriad of problems on this topic:

 

-Half of my family doesn't get the whole using the computer for anthing other than emailing stupid jokes thing.

 

-2 of my best friends are having babies next month, and although they both said they would come, neither of them have decided whether their hubbys will come or stay home w/the new babies.

 

-My FI's family thinks RSVP's are unnecessary - they are Hispanic & apparently expect everybody & their inlaws to show up for their events, so why shouldn't I.

 

-And, last but not least, I just found out that a few of my girlfriends from the pre-engagement days are seriously planning on just showing up (they have not been invited.) I don't even want to get into that right now.

 

However, I've invited 45 ppl total, and am confident that at least 30 of them will show up, so I'm basing all of my figures on 40. It should be fine, but GAWD, what's up with people??

Christa,

Good luck with that one.... I'll tell you right now, anybody in your FIs family that you think can financially swing it, go ahead and count them in! My little sister got married in NC this past May. She sent out invites, counted RSVPs, etc... 2-3 weeks before the wedding, our family in California (can't remember now.... 20 people??) calls to tell us they are coming. Not to scare you but not only did they show up with very little notice, but they also had nowhere to stay and expected us to house them. Which of course, were obligated to since they are family. Hispanic culture is very much like that, sorry to say! Luckily my mom told them that if they showed up to Cabo, they'd have to get hotel rooms... seriously, I wonder if without that warning they'd expect to stay with us?!? Just kidding!

Oh... and if they do show up to the wedding, my advice to you is to have one person in charge of them arriving ON TIME. Are you used to "Hispanic time" yet? The whole family from California showed up to the church for my sister's wedding 30 mins late, and really thought they'd be "on time". They saw us walking out, they missed the whole thing! We had a family party for my FI and I this saturday at 6 PM.... EVERYBODY but my sister's inlaws showed up at 8:15 PM. I know this is probably nothing new to you.... but know what to expect to avoid the headaches!

I've tried to break my parents out of the habit, and I have successfully reduced their tardiness to 30-60 mins.

Karla- You are so funny and right about "mexican time". The good thing is i am putting my MIL in charge of my family. Although she is mexican too, she is not like that at all and i figure it will keep her busy. hee hee

Thanks Karla! Just what I needed! Crap. See, no, I'm not used to it because we don't spend a lot of time w/his family. We only see them when we travel to Arizona, so it's generally on their terms. Earlier this year one of his older sisters & her hubby renewed their vows (very sweet), but come to think of it the whole church ceremony started like an hour late! But the good part is that they had one hell of a party afterwards, and got up early the next day to make menudo for all of us!

 

I do worry about uninvited people showing up though. We only invited so many people for various reasons, budget being one of them! Actually another one of his sisters rsvp'd on our site & put in that there would be 3 in their party...ummm, does that mean I have to pay for their 5 year old to sit with them? Not something I am excited about dealing with, but I would prefer not to pay $128 for a little girl to not eat any of the food!

 

Aye, aye, aye!~

We've had 3 cancel in the last week - grrr. There goes several hundred dollars out the door. I wouldn't mind a few affirmatives at this point so the food we already paid for doesn't go to waste.

OMG that is a crazy story! I bullied my Mexican family into RSVPing. It was a pain, but it got done. Luckily, my brother got married in August so he already broke them in.

OK - glad the FI is Italian! It would drive me batty if someone showed up that late.

 

So, here's what we did:

 

a) We told people there were only 30 rooms reserved. If you don't book, you don't get a price break and, given that it's high season, you might not get a room at all. Turns out - all the hotels were booked a month ago so I'm glad everyone has a room.

 

We told them they had to book by one month after our e-vite went out. THAT was really important. We had two couples say they were coming who bagged out after the one month passed. We were on the hook for a percentage of the block of rooms. We also, however, had two couples invite themselves so, somehow, it worked out.

 

c) We pointed out to people that if they didn't get their flight reserved, it would only go up (this was in June when gas prices just kept climbing and climbing).

 

Net result - everyone RSVPd by July 11th and our wedding is November 11th. We don't have any cancellations (save the "replacement team" discussed above).

 

E-vite worked - not because of e-vite but because I had the FI personally follow up (sometimes he had to numerous times). They weren't responding to me. They did to him

 

The benefit: For those straggling family members (extended family) who didn't get back to us, it's easy for us to explain that they missed the boat in the process and while we'd love to have them, there isn't any availability.

 

NOW - for the ceremony, we've put on every bit of correspondence that the wedding starts at 3:45 and the processional starts at 4:00. Anecdotally, we've told those that we know are habitually late that our judge has to leave right at 4:20 to get over to another wedding so there is no room to budge. We start even if no one is in their chairs. We'll see how that goes...

 

Wow - Christa - I feel ya on the uninvited girlfriends. What do you do about that? OK - that gets another

ugghh..this thread is making me have bad flashbacks. it was so hard for me to let go and just let the wedding happen but steve is so lax and his family had all this last minute drama about who was going and not going...it was so frustrating. if they only knew the stress they put me through. why dont people get it! how hard is it to send the pre-stamped, self-addressed envelope back!!

wow...

 

looks like rsvps are going to give us some good times