RSVP is a French term, asking your guests to let you know if they will be attending your party or event. It stands for ‘repondez-vous si vous plait’ which means ‘Respond please’. RSVP is a standard part of most invitations, unless you decide to not put it on. While leaving the guest response part of the invitation off is often desirable because it takes a lot of time to receive and check responses, it is not recommended for these 5 reasons:
1.) Getting a Head Count
You need to know how many people are coming to your event. Having an RSVP allows you to get that count easily. So the host or hostess can prepare the supplies for the get together and not be short food or have too much left over.
2.) RSVPs Have Become Easier
Responding to an invitation is relatively easy these days. Add call or text to the response part of your invitation and you’ll have many of your guests using the texting option, taking no time from your busy daily schedule at all. Just remember to save the texts for when you are figuring out your head count.
You will want to respond to all texts from guests with a ‘Thank you for letting me know. See you there’. While texting makes things easier, you should still offer your best self to the potential guest for your party.
3.)You Aren’t the One Paying
The host or hostess require physical responses. If you are a young adult bride who is not the person paying for your wedding, you should get response cards and require your guests to fill them out and send them to person who is paying for the wedding. Allow the host or hostess of the affair to be in control of all of the information they need. This will put less stress on them and much less stress on you.
4.) Guests Need Your Information
An RSVP gives much needed information to the guests – and perhaps the guest’s parents. When you are inviting the children of your child’s school class to a birthday party, it is imperative that you share your name with them on the invitation. Not to do so, in this day and age, could make parents wary of allowing their child to not only come to this event, but any event you have after. A simple first name if your last is the same as your child’s, both if not, will help the other parents feel comfortable calling you and asking any questions they may have.
5.) RSVPs Make Potential Guests Feel Welcome
You want the guest to feel welcome right from the get-go! When you use an RSVP on your invitation, you are doing just that. If you have them sign up on a website or just show up, you might as well be going to a meeting. You don’t start a conversation, because you look as if you don’t care. Putting your name and number at the end of an invitation says to your guests: “This is me, this event is for my (husband, child, parents) and I care about you coming”.
Notable Mistakes Using RSVP
One mistake I have seen many times is when a host or hostess wants to be polite, but they don’t understand the translation of RSVP. It is not proper to add a ‘please’ in front of the RSVP, like so: Please RSVP by date. That ‘please’ is not only not necessary, but it looks bad to guests – like a huge grammar mistake. Like I said in the beginning paragraph, RSVP means ‘respond, please’. Therefore, there is no need for the first please.
Another mistake is not giving yourself enough time to get ready for the party after the RSVP date is given. If you only have a day or two after the RSVP date until the party, you will not be able to make calls for the stragglers and you may not have everything you need the day of the party. Do not assume people aren’t coming because they haven’t called.
As a host or hostess, you can now see why using a RSVP is important to your event. Enjoy!