I think RSVP is a better idea, but still not all people do it. At least when you do the RSVP thing you can order a little extra incase more people show up, but with regrets you're screwed.
There was no envelope to return-- a simple phone call: about 50 families made them and about 50 didn't. You all are over-reacting to the nature of my guests. I know them all on a first name basis. I just didn't know them all well and this was meant to be an opportunity to get to know them and to cross-pollinate my friends: those from the city, those from church, those from work, those from the past (I have two grown kids and two elementary school agers).
If the invitation gets lost in the mail no kind of notification is taking place... so it really doesn't matter. "Regrets Only" is much clearer than "RSVP". Damn, RSVP is French after all. I bet most of you think it means to call and tell us if you are coming when it fact it means to call and tell us that you are coming. Is Emily Post still in the paper? But yeah I am a little pissed that I spent more money and made more effort than was necessary. I was only asking for a simple phone call to help with the numbers. If I get invited somewhere, I expect to go unless other plans or circumstances prevail. I wouldn't invite people if I didn't expect them to come.
Pick up I-40 and go 800 miles east to North Carolina... I did send some friends home with beer. I don't really like the stuff that much.
You assume that the RSVP thing works smoothly. If people don't practice courtesy to respond, you're screwed either way.
I'm 32 years old, have been to many many parties and if I got an invite saying "regrets only" I'd think it was for a funeral or something weird. I'd be freaked out and wouldn't attend. I don't like having regrets. A "regrets only" party doesn't sound like fun to me. WTF?
From Wikipedia: "The Texas Revolution or Texas War of Independence was fought from October 2, 1835 to April 21, 1836 between Mexico and the Texas (Tejas) portion of the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas." April 21 is historically recognized as the end of the struggle for independence. The party was originally slated for March 8 (SAT) and was to have been an Alamo Day party, but the weather was not that good so we pushed it back into the Spring... after Easter, after Taxes and settled on the first Saturday after the 21st and made it a Texas Independence Day Celebration... Gee, tough crowd!
I am having a party for my wife's birthday. I used evite.com. I know that every person I invited looked at the evite, yet there are still a number of folks who haven't responded any of 3 ways; yes, no, unsure. It can't be more simple than that. I mean, they took the trouble to read the evite, some more than once, yet still haven't taken the time to click on a link.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that you could have: A) Figured it out and B) Handled it appropriately. The invitation said " My and My Wife's First and Last Name / 555-1212 / Regrets Only We are all grownups here... at least the one's invited were...
I didn't ask them to throw the party... but they're asking/expecting me to respond to an invitation. Sounds like it's their problem.
Originally Posted by no_answer I think RSVP is a better idea, but still not all people do it. At least when you do the RSVP thing you can order a little extra incase more people show up, but with regrets you're screwed. I know. My husband has a HUGE family, so every year when we have parties we have to buy tons of food and drinks and people NEVER RSVP. We always have a little bit left over that people either take home or we eat for lunch the next day.
An invitation is an outreach, a gesture of friendship... and you consider it an inconvenience on you to make a phone call to say "Sorry I can't make it." Just WOW.
That's 100% correct. But I have issues with using phones. Not quite a phobia, but I just really hate to call people that I don't know really well. I would much rather speak to them in person. So yeah, to me it's a pretty big inconvenience.
Live and learn. I guess RSVP is the way to go. Especially for a first time event. At least then, if people don't respond you have an excuse to call them up "just to help plan for the food and such." I thought evite.com was really stupid.....until I used it. It's actually awesome. You still haven't told us if the party was any good.
It's probably better to just respond to an evite. I seem to recall I didn't respond to one for a co-worker who was leaving and I got a reminder e-mail every day thereafter. lol. I didn't respond because I couldn't understand why he invited me as I barely knew him, he worked in a completely different area, and I only sat in a few meetings with him with discussion strictly limited to business. Therefore, I felt a disassociation with the evite...almost as if it were spam. Sometimes, I think people just invite people to get as many people as they can at their event regardless. Like I said, I barely knew the guy and didn't see the reasoning behind the evite from only sitting in a few business meetings with him. Somehow, that made us buds to where I would want to send him off? Umm...okay...no.
