have you been invited to a wedding?

If you have been invited to a wedding, then this blog post is for you. And if you are a bride/groom, why not print this out and include it in your wedding invitation? Okay. I’m kidding about that. Sort of.

Dear Wedding Guests:

It is an honor to be invited to a wedding. Although I’m sure some of you may have rolled your eyes at the sight of the beautiful invitation, thinking to yourself, “They just want a gift.”

Perhaps you don’t realize the hours that the bride and groom and respective parents toiled over the guest list, sometimes fighting to make sure that YOURname stayed on. Perhaps you haven’t taken into account the current economic times and that every person the bride and groom invites is a variable cost to their bottom line.

You should know that it’s not just the cost of the meal. Every person needs to have a seat, which has a chair cover, at a table with a centerpiece with a rented linen, and rented china. Not to mention the average bar cost per person, taxes, gratuity, favors and the most expensive cake that a person will ever purchase. All based on the number of guests attending the wedding.

So no, it’s not just the cost of $xx.xx a meal, the average cost per person at a wedding can easily be triple that number. Please take all of these factors into consideration when you receive an invitation to a wedding and when purchasing a gift for the couple.

Speaking of gifts, the best gift you can give to any couple is to RSVP. On time. 

Check your schedule. Talk to your spouse. Arrange a babysitter. Arrange a babysitter backup. And then take 30 seconds to check YES!, put the RSVP card in the already stamped envelope and drop it in the mailbox right outside your door. RSVP! On time. 

And if you cannot attend, do the same as above, just check REGRETS. You may want to follow up with a personal note and be sure to go ahead and mail your gift to the couple directly.

Please, please, please do not say you are coming and then not attend because deep down attending the wedding wasn’t that important to you in the first place. You can’t imagine how sad it is seeing empty tables at a wedding reception because guests didn’t show up. And how frustrating it is for the bride and groom to shell out the extra thousands of dollars expecting all of the guests.

Now that you are an informed wedding guest, I am confident that you will not create a faux pas when you receive your next invitation.

Let me know how this works out. *wink*

plan on!

 

9 thoughts on “have you been invited to a wedding?”

  1. Pingback: Bits of awesome « Wrangler Dani

  2. Saundra, this is a great post. It really irks me when guests do not RSVP. I mean seriously, how hard is it? Unless it is truly a true emergency, you should never RSVP that you are attending and then not show for the wedding because as Saundra pointed out, there are more expenses to the reception than just the meal itself.

    On the other side of the coin, you should never NOT RSVP and then show up at the wedding. That’s so tacky and inconsiderate. Get it together people!

  3. I completely agree with the post. It is sad that when you are meeting with a bride and have to tell them early on that if your numbers go down you can call us the week of.

    Brides should not be worried with numbers the week of the wedding. You should respect the bride and groom enough to give a straight answer to them.

  4. I had 4 people RSVP and not show up to my wedding. My wedding was 5 years ago, but I will never forget who those people were. It is very strange because my wedding day was such a blur but there are small things (like the RSVPed, but no-showed guests) that I remember perfectly.

    On the flip side, when I receive an invite to a wedding, if I know I am going, I RSVP the day I get the invite in the mail. It is such a help to the bride to know numbers early on, so if I know I am going, why hold off?

    Thanks for the post.

  5. I was a bit ticked when 80 people RSVPed for our wedding and only about 65 showed up. My wife and I fought about how much our guest list and budget was increased by extra people then they didn’t show up. That was a lot of money planning and time put into making if comfortable for those many people. We had a wonderful time but when it came time to distribute checks at the end of the night it was a bit disheartening.

  6. Thank you all for your comments. I have to tell you how frustrated I am when I see 3-4 empty tables at the wedding reception. Brides will come and ask our team, “Where are the guests?”

    And to think about how many decisions about saving money, the bride/groom made just before the wedding because they wanted to make sure that their guests had seats and dinners. It’s frustrating!

  7. Saundra:
    Excellent post. I had a wedding this past weekend where the bride anticipated 411 guests (386 adults). To be on the safe side I told her to only guarantee 370 adults & 25 kids. Well on wedding day only 360 came to the reception. That is 4 whole tables that were truly not needed. People do not realize how much of a headache that becomes for the bride and groom, especially in these times. That amounted to a good chunk of change that the newlyweds could have had in their savings accounts.

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