Invitation Wording - how do we get guests to book??

[emaya77]

Hi,

 

We have our wedding website up that guests have been going to and submitting their preliminary (not final) rsvp's (we sent the save the date via email, and asked that they click on the link [which brings them to our site] and to rsvp from there)...but what do we do next??

 

I know we have to send out paper invitations, but what do we say on them?? How do we get guests to book for real?? I am so lost, so any help would be wonderful!!

 

Thanks!

Emily

[drtracy]

Hi Emaya77 ~ We are inserting a small card in with our paper invites. The card basically says if they haven't booked yet to contact our TA by a certain date or if they made their own accommodations to let us know with our contact information. This way it doesn't take up good invite space and it reminds them and tells them how to book. The card is also a different color so it stands out a bit.

If you don't want to wait until the paper goes out I've found that my mom and FMIL are great enforcers. They've been calling relatives and others to remind them.

 

Hope that helps, good luck!

[JessicaM]

I think giving them a little nudge when you send your invites out would be a good idea. Maybe a little insert in there to give them the TA info again and telling them to reserve their trips to ensure availability might help. My family was also good and helping people book that were just waiting. Hope that helps.

[Ana]

Hmm we had our guests book before we sent out the invites. That was just more or less a formality, although we did have a few book after we sent them as well. We didn't do anything special. Our invites were a booklet type, with diff pages being diff entries. One entry was the story of how we met (which Amy) helped with one page was our itinerary, one page was the description of cabo and the event and one was the RSVP. Most ppl responded quite well to that.

[emaya77]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ana Hmm we had our guests book before we sent out the invites. That was just more or less a formality, although we did have a few book after we sent them as well. We didn't do anything special. Our invites were a booklet type, with diff pages being diff entries. One entry was the story of how we met (which Amy) helped with one page was our itinerary, one page was the description of cabo and the event and one was the RSVP. Most ppl responded quite well to that.

Hi,
How did you get your guests to book before you sent out the invites? Did you email them?
Thanks!

[MissyR]

We had our website with all the details and our TA information - some people booked immediately through the TA once visiting the site. When we sent out the paper invites, we included all the TA information again. If you are going with a group package through a TA, there is often a cutoff date for booking which helped us out a lot.

 

Realistically though, you will have people book up to 4 weeks before -we did!

[cancunbride]

I had the same problem but what I did was I added the TA information on my website then I added that on the save the date as well. We waited to see how many people booked with TA before we sent out formal invites. Guests were calling us and asking us questions so we kind of knew who was coming and who wasnt. Then we sent out the formal invites to the people we knew were coming just so that we wouldnt spend unnecessary money on formal invites for people who werent attending

 

Regardless I had a few people saying there were coming and ended up flaking..

 

Just keep track of your website.. On mine I have a rsvp button and that leads you to a mailing address box where you input your address for formal invite.

 

Good Luck

[cancunbride]

I had the same problem but what I did was I added the TA information on my website then I added the TAs info also on the save the date as well. We waited to see how many people booked with TA before we sent out formal invites. Guests were calling us and asking us questions so we kind of knew who was coming and who wasnt. Then we sent out the formal invites to the people we knew were coming just so that we wouldnt spend unnecessary money on formal invites for people who werent attending. On the save the dates I added wording saying to pls rsvp for formal invites on website or by calling me or TA.

 

Regardless I had a few people saying there were coming and ended up flaking..

 

Just keep track of your website.. On mine I have a rsvp button and that leads you to a mailing address box where you input your address for formal invite.

 

Good Luck

[heatherw]

Did anyone have it setup so that your guests had to book at the resort where the wedding was being held? Or is it normal to just let them book wherever they want?

[crazykat]

I went through a travel agent, and we had to put down a deposit of approx $2000. This held and blocked off rooms at the resort it also held our prices for not going up or down for approx 3-4 weeks. We had to tell our travel agent how many rooms we wanted to block off. We sent out our boarding pass save-the-date with a letter from the travel agent that had a blurb about the resort, the approximate dates we we going, the prices of the different rooms people could chose from. By the time people recieved their save-the dates and letter they had approx two weeks to put down a $200 deposit to hold their rooms. There was a date on the letter that people had to put down their deposits by or the risked the prices they were quoted in the letter to go up/or not get placed with the group when travelling. We ended up getting 41 people booked. Once every one put their depisits down we got out $2000 back. Not sure if this helps anyone, but I though I would just mentioned how I did it.