Displaced Beachbums

When I lived in Atlanta, back in the early nineties, I was invited to a beautiful, southern society wedding. Along with most of the wedding plans, the bride’s mother took care of the invitations. I was surprised to receive an invitation without a response card. You know the card I’m talking about ~ they are pre-printed and you fill in the blanks, some you fill in the number attending, etc. There’s even a pre-addressed stamped envelope to make it easy for the invited guest. And yet, some people can’t even manage to send back the idiot proof card.

I was so used to being hand-held through the RSVP (Please Respond) process that when I received the invitation with not so much as an RSVP printed on it, I asked around as to how the family was going to plan for the number of people if they didn’t ask for an RSVP. That’s when I was politely “educated” on etiquette. If you receive an invitation, you respond whether or not they request it. It’s the polite and proper thing to do. 

Getting people to RSVP has been a big problem for hosts for many years. Perhaps they are young like I was and don’t know better. Although my parents talked to me about basic table etiquette, I don’t remember a lot of talk about parties, etc. But there is also another set of people who know better and just can’t be bothered. With Army events, some people are on invitation lists due to their spouse’s position and the invitee sometimes is “bothered” by all the invitations. As though making a call or clicking a button on the evite is really such an effort.

We recently had an event held by another unit and when the RSVPs didn’t come in, the coordinators thought we should all have a class on etiquette to include how to RSVP. Hmmm…how are we going to get someone to a class who can’t even be bothered with picking up the phone and saying “I won’t be able to make it.”

As a hostess, RSVP etiquette is very important for planning purposes. I hate having extra food just in case someone shows up unexpectedly. Even in these crazy, busy over-planned days we all have, no one is too busy to respond properly to an invitation. If you think about it, it’s a matter of respecting that other person’s invitation, their time and their money.

Years ago, I knew someone who gave her invited guests THREE chances. If she didn’t receive an RSVP within three invitations, they were deleted from her invitation list. A little harsh perhaps but it certainly saved her a lot of party-planning frustration.  😉