How to follow up with guests who didn’t RSVP

Dream: As a bride, you are super freaking organized. You’re checking things off your wedding planning to-do list in precisely the correct order at the exact time you planned. You sent out your wedding invitations at the 6-week mark and gave your guests plenty of time to RSVP. All guests responded on time, most even responded as soon as they got the invite! All necessary vendors know exactly how many people to expect. 

Reality: Organized bride? HA! You are constantly overwhelmed with everything that needs to get done, but somehow you did manage to mail out your wedding invitations on time. Now, it’s the day where all your guests were supposed to have RSVP’d and you’re missing WAY too many answers! What are you going to do now?!

First, calm down and don’t get frustrated. We’ll get this taken care of! Here’s how to follow up with guests who didn’t RSVP:

Wait

The first thing you should do after not receiving all RSVP’s is to wait. We know; it seems counterintuitive. You immediately want to reach out to everyone who didn’t respond and demand an answer! But, people are busy and they forget things. Especially if the responses needed to be mailed back as opposed to an online response. Guests may have taken the respond date as a “mail by” date instead. Wait at least a couple of days, if not a full week, and then you can start contacting all your unresponsive guests. 

Call

Now that you’ve given them some extra time, you can start calling. It’s 2020, and you’re probably used to emailing or texting, but calling is the best way to get an answer, and a quick answer at that. Simply let them know that it is however many days/weeks until your wedding day and you need to give your vendors a headcount. Also, be polite!!! They are not a horrible person because they didn’t send an RSVP. They are human and humans make mistakes, especially one as easy as forgetting to respond. Have you ever forgotten to respond to a text message? Exactly. 

If the person you are trying to call does not answer, leave them a voicemail. Make sure the voicemail includes ways to respond. For instance, say, “Instead of mailing back the RSVP card, to ensure we get a correct headcount in time, please respond to me by email or text. My phone number is _______ and my email address is _______.” Make it easy for them to respond and they are much more likely to do so. 

Write

If you were not able to reach your guests via phone, it’s now time to move on to sending out written communication. You can choose to do this via email or text. Although, if you have their cell phone number, that is typically a faster method than email. Be sure to let them know that you need their answer quickly, again, to give your vendors an accurate headcount. If they are still not responsive, send them a follow-up text/email saying if you haven’t heard from them by _______ (date of your choosing), you will, unfortunately, be taking them off the guest list. 

Decide

Finally, for unresponsive guests, it’s ultimately up to you to decide if you provide meals and seating for them just in case, or you cross them off the list. If you followed our advice and sent the follow-up email giving them a date to respond by or they are off the list, it makes this decision a little easier. But, by all means, feel free to continue to reach out to the people that you really want to be there.

Most importantly, don’t let unresponsive guests stress you out. Simply follow our advice on how to follow up with guests who didn’t RSVP. But, those most important to you will respond and will be there. You will not even notice the absence of any others on your wedding day. This is you and your fiancé’s day and that’s what you’ll be focused on! 

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