If there are one million things the internet has taught us, one of them is that people can feel completely differently about the etiquette of a situation. “I can’t BELIEVE someone would do X instead of Y!!,” someone will rant, leaving others saying, “What?? I thought I was SUPPOSED to do X! I was doing it ON PURPOSE in order to do the RIGHT thing! I thought it was rude to do Y!!”
For example, there are assorted rules covering table manners, and we weren’t all taught the same set. Certain things are clearly wrong (chewing with mouth open, for example), but many things can receive the benefit of the doubt: the “polite” way to hold a fork, the “polite” way to spoon up the soup, whether or not it’s okay to have elbows on the table, etc. There are plenty of rules where some of the population is taught that the X way is polite and the Y way is rude, or that X is hugely important and Y is outdated, while another part of the population is taught the exact opposite. It would be a mistake to judge someone else’s overall politeness or one’s own superiority by standards that aren’t universal.
However, I have been thinking LONG AND HARD, and I can’t think of ANY UNIVERSE in which it’s okay not to RSVP. Can you? That is, I allow for the possibility that I have overlooked a segment of the population that has been taught specifically NOT to RSVP, that RSVPing is rude. But I’m guessing I have not overlooked anything like that.
The only thing I can think of is that I suppose some people might think it counts as RSVPing if they tell their invited child to tell the birthday child that they can/can’t come—but aren’t we all familiar with children and their sketchy reliability? There’s no way for the birthday child’s parent to know if the invited child’s parent was involved, if the invited child accurately reported, if the birthday child accurately reported; there’s no way for the invited child’s parent to know if the message got through. It’s like playing Telephone, and also it ignores the instructions on the invitation for the manner in which the RSVP should be sent. Still: I can see how this could qualify as intending to RSVP, and not being aware that the attempt is failing.
I also know that sometimes a child crams the invitation in the backpack and doesn’t bring it out for days or weeks. In that case, it’s not failing to RSVP, it’s “See also: not letting children be in charge of carrying the RSVP messages.”
I do know, from experience and from thinking, that there can be reasons to postpone an RSVP: sometimes an invitation arrives three weeks before the event, and the family’s plans aren’t yet made, and maybe there’s a known event that is still up in the air but may very well be on that day: a game that will be that day if they win the other game this weekend, family possibly coming from out of town that day, etc. I have myself fallen victim to the “I can’t think about this right now,” put-it-in-the-pile-on-the-counter error. Ever since throwing my first kid party eleven years ago (this is a boring digression, but with Rob the plan was a Friend Party at age five and at age ten; please don’t tell the other children), I’ve avoided this—but it requires active remembering not to do it. (If I really couldn’t RSVP without waiting for more information, I would RSVP that that was the case: that is, “We got the invitation to Noah’s party. Jacob may have a game that day, if they win their game on the 17th. I’ll be back in touch as soon as we know.”)
I also know that there can be mix-ups. I am always a little worried that when I leave a message on an answering machine or send an email/text, that I may have dialed the wrong number or typed the wrong address or maybe the email got caught in a spam filter: what if someone THINKS I didn’t RSVP, when I DID?? *CRINGE CRINGE CRINGE* (This is why, although I wouldn’t go so far as to call someone back to say I got their RSVP, I do answer a text or email to say “Great! See you then!”) So with a certain percentage of failed RSVPs, I make that assumption: I assume that someone DID in fact RSVP, but that it didn’t reach me.
But all these things together don’t account for the number of people who just…don’t RSVP. Just, CHOOSE NOT TO.
I’ve heard that many people feel awkward about RSVPing a no, because it feels bad to reject an invitation, and I can see that. It IS harder than a yes. But which feels worse: telling someone they are sorry they can’t come but they have something else scheduled then, or being a no-show at someone’s birthday party? One of Elizabeth’s friends had a party recently and Elizabeth was the ONLY GUEST who came. The family could have adjusted for that if they’d known, but they didn’t know. Disappointed child, nearly-wasted party-place rental, wasted party bags, wasted pizza. We all made the best of it, but it would have been so much better to have some advanced warning. There were other adjustments that could have been made ahead of time to improve the party, if the parents had known.
Or, let’s be frank: there could have been second-string invitations. If the child is allowed to invite, say, six guests, and five of them RSVP a prompt no, then there is time to invite five more people. If there are a lot of uncertain guests, or the RSVPs of “no” come very late, there is no time.
Maybe people are thinking it doesn’t really matter to the host if one single guest doesn’t RSVP: they’re assuming everyone else is doing it, so they’re the only one who isn’t. And there are types of parties where it probably doesn’t matter if only one guest fails to RSVP: maybe it’s a big cook-out with the whole class invited, so if twenty-two of the twenty-three kids RSVP, the one uncertain guest falls well within the number of extra hot dogs and hamburgers that would be on hand anyway. But if five of the twenty-three guests RSVP, there is a HUGE DIFFERENCE between “food for five guests” and “food for twenty-three guests.”
In some cases, the host can call and nag. It’s pretty unkind to the host to make him/her do this, but at least they have an option. For Rob’s five-year-old friend party, where I’d allowed him to invite two friends and neither one RSVP’d, I was able to painfully, agonizingly, awkwardly call, because the kindergarten gave out parent-contact lists. I suffered, but at least I got the answers. But for Edward and Elizabeth’s parties, there are no parent-contact lists. The only way to get the invitations out is to send them in with the child (see above re: bad idea); the only way to get the RSVPs is to have the parents use the contact information provided on the invitation.
In short: RSVP! RSVP!
SO right with you! Recently had daughter’s party. 3 non-RSVPers 2 days before party. I emailed them, two never responded even to the nagging email and one responded yes and then NO SHOWED! And that’s on top of one child (parent) that RSVPed yes and then changed it to no, and one who RSVPed no and then THE DAY OF THE PARTY texted my daughter and asked if it was ok if they both came!! This was the mother who texted MY DAUGHTER (I can’t even comprehend doing this!) who promptly texted back yes without asking me! Unbelievable!
this is giving me agita. WHAT. THE. HECK.
I have my own grumpiness around this — in my case, I’m the chair of my department and usually give a Christmas party each year for something that MAY be just over 40 people if they all come. What usually happens is that some people promptly RSVP yes or no, and some people don’t RSVP at all. The worst bit is the people who regularly say yes and then, the VERY AFTERNOON OF THE PARTY, email me to say they’re tired or have another obligation and aren’t coming after all. That does not count as RSVPing, folks, that is just plain bad manners unless the “other obligation” is virulent illness or an invitation to the White House. One year I had a solid list of 32 until the afternoon of the party (food, drinks, etc all bought and prepared) and suddenly I had a list of 19. Ugh!
This! This is the reason I hate to RSVP!! My biggest fear is RSVP-ing yes, then not being able to make it. I feel real anxiety when accepting invitations that I’ll have to call again later and give a reason why we can’t come. What if they think my reason isn’t good enough? What if I choose not to give one and they think that’s rude? What if my reason is my error, such as promising to be in two places at once? What if I counted on my husband taking one kid one place and me taking the other to this party, then I find out he’s not going to be available?
On the other side – what if I RSVP no, then our other plans fall through? What if I assume the child will want to go to their regularly-scheduled activity, but when they hear the birthday child talking about their party they decide they REALLY REALLY want to go?
I know basically all these situations could be remedied with a phone call to discuss whether a RSVP can be changed, but I haaaaaaaaaate those phone calls. This all comes down to not wanting to make that phone call.
I would personally prefer an RSVP yes and then have someone change it to no at the last minute than to not hear anything at all. Most people are (or should be!) understanding that things come up that can cause plans to change.
Things can come up, sure! but I’m standing by the notion that they should be serious things, like illness, not “I got a better offer.” I’m also pretty sure that in Jesabes’s example, where you accidentally double-booked, or another parent wasn’t available, you’d figure that out before the afternoon of the party? Just saying.
I’m also not saying that bailing on a party is THE WORST THING EVER OMG. I’m just saying I’m grumpy about it. I think it’s usually avoidable, that’s all.
I hope it didn’t sound like I was trying to push back at your answer! You’re absolutely right to be annoyed. My worry about potentially legitimately annoying someone or ruining their plans is why I am always nervous about RSVPing.
No, not at all. Crossed wires. We’re good. Hug it out :)
Oh, you totally have a right to be annoyed! I’m talking more about legitimate unforeseen circumstances. Or I’d at least prefer a maybe, then no response at all.
We recently went through this for my son’s wedding. How hard is it to tick the box on the card and put it into the pre-stamped envelope! When we called/texted/emailed non-responders, they were like–“of course, we’re coming! We thought you’d know that.” What?!?!?
Oh, RSVPs! So tricky with wedding planning too! I had a full family of 5 (all adults) RSVP yes and then no showed. They forgot. And they lived in town! Especially annoying when its a catered deal. After that, I try my hardest to RSVP correctly. Which means I can be one if those annoying last minute RSVPers so my response is accurate. Sorry, world!
Oh, I agree, just RSV freaking P! DO IT! I had a party for my six year old a few weeks ago and invited like 12 or 13 people, via evite. The worst thing about evite is that you can see that the person saw the invite and then when they don’t respond at all – even though their choices are YES NO or MAYBE, it is even more infuriating, to me. The invitation just said please come and celebrate Veronica’s birthday with pizza and cake so it was clearly not a sit down dinner but I had to send a message saying , if you have a moment would you mind responding so we know how much pizza to get? Seriously, within five minutes six holdouts responded. A few of them just … never responded! What the hell? It drives me bananas, we can’t invite everyone from their class so I can’t have them mention it in school, I have limited ways to communicate with parents, ugh. Just RSVP! I am with you 100% RSVP! There is no excuse to not do it, imo.
Amen. I have been guilty of RSVP-ing later than I should have done (but not, like, 48 hours before the event unless I had previously RSVP’ed a “maybe, if X does/doesn’t happen. We really want to join you but may have a conflict! Is it OK to let you know later?”), but the whole not-RSVP’ing thing: yuck.
An unrelated question perhaps for another post (because I’d love your/commenters thoughts on the topic), at what point does/doesn’t it become OK for kids to start scheduling their own activities (not just parties, but get-togethers, “play dates” etc.), and how should/shouldn’t this be managed? I mean, obviously there is a learning curve, etc., so we parents should (as ever) be tolerant/flexible/understanding but I am now trying to figure out what is/isn’t expected of (or on behalf of) my second grader. He has a friend who lives 2 houses down from ours and it is entirely possible for him to walk to/from there without my involvement (and vice versa for his friend), and conversely, he has another friend who lives a good distance (15 minute drive?) away, who will call/text me repeatedly to find out if my son can come over. I usually try to check with the parents before allowing DS to show up at their door in the first case and always insist on touching base with the parents in the second (before, you know, just showing up), but am not sure exactly what others expect. And obviously this is only going to get more complex as DS gets older. Also right now he will not himself initiate any other-than-in-person invitations or requests, e.g. if a phone call must be made he asks me to make it, which is OK (and maybe good), but of course at some point — the child is going to have to learn how to use the phone! So — insights? Opinions? I’d be grateful for help!
I’ve had trouble with this too. My eldest (16 and in 10th grade) now manages all his own stuff, except for the “asking us if it’s okay” part—but I’m not sure when that happened, because he never did get-togethers until he got to that stage. I know it seemed odd to me when other parents were contacting ME to set something up between their child and William (14 and in 8th grade): it felt as if their child should be calling William. On the other hand, William will.not.call a friend. WHY?? So my guess is that his friends are the same, and the parents are like, “This is not going to happen unless I do it, so I will do it.” Elizabeth (9 and in 4th) does a mix: sometimes she and a friend talk about something, and then they ask the parents, and then I find the parents tend to double-check with each other jussssst to be sure: a text, for example, saying, “Just making sure we’re still on for 2:00.” Other times, I hear first from the parent: “Would Elizabeth like to come play with Emma on Saturday?”
Hm. This is not a very helpful answer. I haven’t really figured it out, either, and it seems like the particular kids/parents involved make SUCH a difference: some parents are like, “Yeah, of course, drop by anytime!,” and some want their kids to manage it, and some want to be completely involved and like to initiate things, and GOODNESS so many variables!
In our case, Oldest has several friends in the neighborhood (walking distance) and they all have been free form roaming over to each other’s houses forever. For friends who live farther away and require driving, Oldest really started making his own plans all the time this year (6th grade) because he and most of his friends got cell phones for middle school. Now, he basically makes sure it’s ok and someone can drive if he’s going to their house, and does all the rest of the planning himself. Just last year in 5th grade he started calling his friends and vice versa to ask about plans. Before last year all plans that required driving either involved me texting (usually) his friend’s moms or them texting me.
Thanks, @Swistle and @Maggie, that is (actually!) helpful. It seems like the answer is “it all depends,” and “kids vary,” which certainly isn’t a hard-and-fast rule but does at least leave me with a sense that what I’m doing is an approach employed by others!
You school doesn’t publish a directory? I thought that was standard practice for all schools
No, they don’t.
Ours publishes a directory, but we’ve opted out. My husband is the headmaster and I didn’t want EVERYONE knowing all our information. So directories are only of limited use too.
My favorite was the one the preschool used: each family could fill in exactly as much information as they wanted listed. So for example, some families had just a parental email address listed with the child’s name; others had the full parent names including step-parent names, the home addresses, the home/cell/work numbers, an email address, THE WORKS. I liked being able to tweak it: THIS information, but not THIS.
This is how ours works too. You only put in the info you want to put in. That said, it’s done by the PTA and not by the school, so it’s completely optional in all respects.
This is perfect – I shall try to institute this next year for our school. The trouble is that Canada’s laws are VERY restrictive around privacy — so we have no way to contact anyone other than sending a note with the child (which surely all know to be a Very Flawed System).
An aside, to demonstrate said Flawed System: my son (3rd grade) wanted to invite just one person to his birthday party this year; the plan was to go to a movie & then for ice cream. I sent a note with the friend to give to his parents & included my cell number. No response, movie didn’t happen. 4 weeks later I get a call from the mom — the friend had just given her the note! She apologized profusely and was so horrified about the situation; she explained at length how many hours of lectures said friend had received. :)
Flawed System.
Ours had one until this year. I think they couldn’t find anyone to put it together. It’s a lot of work but very useful to have.
I’m in Canada too and there is no school directory at our school either. My children have been part of classes where the teacher has invited people to provide information on a voluntary basis to be distributed on a class contact list though, and it has been handy. I almost always provide only my email address.
YESSSS. I’m *still* having post-traumatic RSVP feelings after the wedding last year. Just say yes or no! In that situation, I was LOOKING FORWARD to some Nos, because cost of meals for everyone blah blah blah – trust me, I won’t be disappointed with a No! I understand that not everyone can come to everything! I don’t need a reason or an excuse! I just NEED TO KNOW.
I totally agree with these comments – it’s so stressful trying to anticipate attendance at a get-together. And at a wedding a “no” response opens up either $$$ or the chance to invite someone you might otherwise not have space for. I never took it personally when people opted out of our wedding – no excuse necessary. I can imagine for a child it would be very disappointing/hurtful to look forward to hosting a party and have an unexpectedly tiny turnout.
One thing I’ve learned as an adult is that most of the time an excuse *isn’t* necessary. And I know the pain wishy-washiness causes. So now I say “I won’t be able to make it, but I’ll be there in spirit” if I really don’t want to attend regardless of whether I have an actual conflict. There doesn’t have to be a reason. Most of the time, nobody really cares. Same goes for work-related things. “I wish I could come to that meeting/conference/training but it won’t work for my schedule that day.” Again, it’s unlikely anyone will notice.
It’s true: I always feel as if I need a Good Excuse, and yet I know from dealing with other people that, “I’m so sorry, we can’t make it” is absolutely sufficient and I don’t even give it a thought.
I also like “Sorry, I already have plans that night, but I hope you have fun!” Even when my plans are to eat ice cream and watch trashy TV by myself.
I’ve been noticing this quite a bit lately with invitations from my daughter’s preschool class. Because it’s parent participation, we have a class Facebook page, and people often send out paper invites, and then follow up on Facebook to ask who’s coming. I was sort of astounded by the number of people who gave full-on excuses for why their child couldn’t make another child’s birthday party, to the point that it managed to make those who said “Sorry, we can’t make it!” and left it at that seem odd (or kind of cool, like “What mysterious thing are YOU doing next weekend?!”). I suspect that people don’t notice or care when RSVPs trickle in, but when you can see them all together like that it really makes you think more about it. And of course, I come at this from the perspective of having recently given the “Sorry we can’t make it” RSVP to a child’s party I literally just didn’t want to bother with.
Oh, the poor kid who only had one guest at her birthday party! Eek! I will say that having done this for a couple years now, I have seen that lots of people don’t RSVP, but I have never had any of those people actually SHOW UP. So my conclusion is that a non-RSVP is a no. It still doesn’t HELP because some people DO RSVP yes last-minute, so you can’t assume nos far enough out for planning purposes. So if you do have, say, a second string that you want to invite, you can only invite them a few days out when you’ve finally given up on getting responses from the others, but it does at least avoid the situation of actually BEING AT THE PARTY and being surprised when nobody shows up.
This drives me nuts. I haven’t given a non-family get-together in years, but yeah. Nuts. NUTS.
For my wedding, I had an out-of-town guest RSVP yes and then not show up. Not sure how that works– you have your plane tickets and hotel reserved, and then you say, meh, I don’t think we’ll go after all. But at least it freed up space for the guest who brought his uninvited mother without checking with us first.
1. uninvited mother OMFG
2. we had a family of FIVE tell us 4 days before the wedding that they actually would be coming! FROM FRANCE. They had failed to RSVP so we assumed they were a no, given family of five needing to book int’l flights, etc. AND THEN two days later – eg 2 days before the wedding – they cancelled. Presumably after learning how much int’l airfare for 5 would be with 2 days advance purchase.
We had this happen (out of town guest failed to show) and he sheepishly called us a week later to say he’d bought tickets for the wrong weekend and was in town. (He didn’t expect us to see him, but called to apologize. We happened to be in town and got to see him and it all worked out fine, but OMG. Of course, this was pre-facebook.)
I had a person I’d been friends with for 15 years RSVP that she and her partner would be coming to my wedding from a city a 2-hour drive away. They never showed. I have never seen or heard from her again.
My wedding was in 2003.
STOP IT! That is FASCINATING to me! Never once in 12 years?!
Meh, unless it’s a wedding I don’t really care that much about not getting RSVPs. I just assume these people aren’t coming. Period. And if you show up without RSVPing THEN I will call you out on it because then I KNOW you got the invitation.
Almost every single kids invitation I have gotten has been balled up in the bottom of a book bag or scrunched up in a school activity folder that I rarely check. Frankly, I’m not interested in increasing the number of times I go through all of my kids crap to make sure I’m not missing party invitations to yet another toddler pizza party. If someone I’ve never met is that upset that they didn’t get my RSVP to a party I didn’t know about, maybe they should rethink who and where they’re sending invitations to.
I am not sure what your suggestion is for this situation (since parents who never see the invitations are already excluded from this request for RSVPs). As the person sending out invitations to the children my child would love to have at the party, and as someone who will be upset if I don’t know how many children to plan for, how can I rethink things in a way that I will know ahead of time to avoid inviting your child? And should children be excluded because of their parents’ behavior, when they (the children) don’t have any control over how their parents handle things? And I would DEFINITELY not want to embarrass a party guest or make them feel unwelcome, just because their parent didn’t RSVP: it isn’t the child’s fault.
I’m not sure this idea (to not be upset, and to rethink the guest list) satisfies the goals, which are: to know how many goody bags to make / how much pizza to order / how many guests to expect, and to avoid being the parent of a very excited child who is waiting for guests who don’t show up. It’s the trouble with being semi-responsible for a minor’s social life: if MY acquaintances don’t RSVP and are peeved at me for wanting to know if they’re coming or not, I really CAN (and WILL) rethink future invitations. But if the kids’ friends’ parents don’t RSVP and are peeved at me for wanting to know, it’s harder for me to do anything about that.
I’m sorry, I wasn’t meaning to be obnoxious…I guess I’m just frustrated at the number of times I haven’t RSVP’d PRECISELY because I haven’t seen the invitation until too late. Despite making that exclusion in your post, this is what almost ALWAYS happens to me. On top of that, RSVPing with phone calls causes me the kind of anxiety that makes me pace and sweat before doing so, no matter how I’m going to respond.
I’m not helpful. :( Just running my mouth.
I too dread the phone call. Especially because often the parents’ names aren’t listed, so my opener is, “Um. Hi. I’m calling to RSVP? about the party?” I used to deliberately call at times when I thought the parents would be out—like, right before I drove home from kindergarten drop-off, and knew the other parent would be driving home too! Cell phones kind of ruined that, though.
Ha, maybe it would be something they should put in the directory! Name, address, and I am or am not willing to look in my kids backpack for an invitation.
I limit the guests my daughter can have to the number of the age she’s turning for a regular party and half that for a slumber party (rounded down in the odd years) and she ALWAYS has a second string of people she’d like to invite, so I appreciate RSVPs and fret over missed ones too.
I just realized that I only ever RSVP with a yes. If we’re not going, I don’t respond at all. I didn’t get that I should respond either way…so now I guess I will try to respond in either case. If I RSVP yes, it goes on the calendar and that’s it..we don’t cancel unless something emergent comes up. I also just assume if I don’t hear back, they aren’t coming. If they do…I generally try to mention that they didn’t RSVP..depending on who they are/the event/how well I know them. This was really interesting, thanks!
I was also taught unless the invitation asks for an response for either a yes or a no (like a wedding card or an evite that has all of the options) that you basically only respond for yes. If I wasn’t getting any responses to an invite I would assume that no one was coming. This is why I obsessively hover over the phone and email when my kid has invites out.
Now that I have read all these response though, I too will begin to respond with no as well.
I feel SICK over the party where only Elizabeth showed up. The same thing happened to me when I was a kid, and it was so traumatic. I still want to cry every single time I think of it.
I have no patience for the non-RSVPers. There is no excuse, short of the parent never having seen the invitation at all (which can really only apply to a small number of people). I don’t even find a “sorry, we can’t come” to be awkward. People have busy lives and other plans! NO BIG DEAL. But radio silence is not acceptable.
I think there is a subset of people who were taught that rsvp is only necessary in case of a yes. So no response equals a no. I am guilty of not responding if the answer is no, and I think that is because I assume they went out to everyone and the parent only wants to know who IS coming.
The trouble is, I think, that it’s hard for the person giving out invitations to know at what point it’s safe to count something as a no, when so many things need to be shopped/planned for in advance.
Last year for one daughter’s party I didn’t get back a single RSVP and no one came. Thank god we had some family friends and grandparents there. Now I’m VERY careful to ALWAYS RSVP because I don’t want to be one of the people I was swearing at last year.
Only this morning I discovered that I had forgotten to send my child to a friend’s birthday party yesterday. And this was a party for which I had RSVP’d yes! I wanted to sink through the pavement this morning when the father of the friend very kindly asked me if my child had been unwell. As someone who thinks of myself as a polite person, I was horrified, and I feel terrible that the parents of the birthday friend had gone to trouble and expense for my child who didn’t show. The parents are being particularly gracious about my memory lapse, which almost makes me feel worse.
ACK! So mortifying! It’s the sort of thing that made me wish we had…I don’t know, Public Scoring Systems or something, so that people would know immediately whether to think, “Uh huh: flake” or “Oh, obviously this is a pure and highly uncharacteristic mistake of the sort that could happen to anyone!”
I did the same thing once – I could have SWORN I wrote it on the calendar. I felt AWFUL.
With the amount of junk we receive in email, I think it is instinct to trash any invitation we are not interested in. It might be rude to not RSVP a no, but it is fairly anonymous rudeness, which is very common nowadays with internet usage. I think I would phrase an invitation as “RSVP by 6/8/2015 if you are planning to attend”.
Also, having recently applied for a new job, I have realized that some people need a lot of nagging to do something that benefits you but not them (e.g. letters of recommendation and an RSVP with a no).
Yes, I think I’ll use the “RSVP by ____” idea next time.
That phrase is what I use. “Please RSVP by 6/8/15 to let us know if you’ll make it or not. Contact BKC (Kiddo’s mom!) by phone or text at 555-555-5555, or email at grumpymom@rsvpdammit.com.”
Then I assume that if you cannot follow clear, polite directions, we cannot be friends. #sorrynotsorry
Brooke, I’m going to steal your phrasing. I give a date, but I like the addition of “if you are planning to attend” because it indicates clearly what no response automatically means.
So timely, Swistle. Last week my kindergartener got an invitation for a classmate’s birthday party. It said “please RSVP quickly because there are only 10 spaces”. Presumably the whole class was invited.
I left a message for the rsvp. I haven’t heard from this woman. Did we make the cut? Why on earth would someone invite 20 kids to a party that only half are invited to?! It’s so weird I didn’t even want to bother with it, but my son wants to go . . .
ACK! This is The Worst!!
Yikes! That is putting the pressure on! Perhaps this person has had it with the non-responders :)
I absolutely cannot imagine anything ruder than inviting someone to a party you know not all invitees can attend. That is absolute failure of hospitality. My Word.
Oh I read this as “The place can only take 10 kids, so let us know in time to invite the B list,” which seems totally reasonable.
Now I am upset :)
This is one of my major pet peeves as well, after we suffered through a birthday party a few years back when NO ONE CAME. We’d invited three kids, and no one had RSVPed. I eventually emailed the two that I had contact info for, and they both said “maybe,” and the third I had no way of contacting, and on the day of, no one showed, GAH. Now I am obsessed with RSVPing immediately, yes or no or even “more info coming later.”
I once had a Facebook friend comment that a parent had chased her down for an RSVP and she thought said parent was obsessive and weird, because if she didn’t RSVP, OBVIOUSLY they were coming. Then a bunch of people commented that they never RSVP yes because not sending an RSVP OBVIOUSLY means they are NOT coming. It was split about 50/50 between people who thought that no RSVP meant an obvious yes, and no RSVP meant obviously no.
What I’ve started doing now is sending invites via email. If my kid wants to invite friend X, and I don’t already know friend X’s parents, he sends a letter home with friend X asking for a phone number or an email address (and why). Once I have contact info, I email the parents directly and then chase them down for RSVPs if they don’t respond. I hate having to be so anal about it but “no more disappointing birthday parties” is my new mantra.
YES. RSVP means “RESPOND PLEASE.” “No response” is not code for ANYTHING!
LITERALLY. Répondez S’il Vous Plait, i.e. French for Please Respond.
Full disclosure: my oldest is only 4, so I have to yet navigate the school friends parties. However, 1) I do not see myself letting an elementary age child go to a person’s house/party who I do not know. If my children get invited to a party, I will be purposefully meeting the parents if I don’t already know them. RSVP thing taken care of right there as I will be talking with them directly. 2) I find it very rude to send out a second wave of invitations! If I knew my child was on the second list, I’m not sure I would want them to go anyway. I understand there are number limitations, but again. I feel like with such small numbers invited (2, 3, 6), all those children would be very good friends with my child, I would already know their parents, and I would not want to randomly just invite other people just to have people come.
But, I am also not a big party person – family and a few good best friends except maybe on big birthdays (10, 16, etc). . .
“Randomly inviting people just to have people come” is definitely not the way I would phrase it. Different people have different levels of friendship with others: a child who is casual friends with everyone in the class is different than a child who has several best friends. Perhaps the sort of child who has several best friends would consider all non-original invitees to be random seat-fillers (in which case perhaps the party could be rescheduled, instead of changing the guest list), but a child who likes everyone roughly the same could be pretty much equally happy to have anyone from the group—and might in fact be delighted to get the chance to invite people who couldn’t be invited before. I too might be slightly put off that my child wasn’t on the first-choice list for everyone he knows, but this is why it’s nice to have the RSVPs in nice and early: no one has to know.
The B list gets a bad wrap, but I think it’s important not to take it personally.
People feel pressure in all kinds of ways – and a lot of the time it’s not the child, it’s the parent that makes all these stipulations: your cousin Jimmy is only 3 months younger than you so he has to get one of the 3 invites to your party; Mikey and Timmys moms are best friends, so I want you to invite them both, not just one! etc.
Then if one of these “must invites” cannot come, maybe the birthday child genuinely wanted *your* child to come and now s/he can.
Also, I feel like it becomes an opportunity to become better friends with these kids if s/he wants to.
I think it should be up to the child if they want to attend.. The politics of getting a second wave invitation are over their heads at this age.
YES!!
My son had a big party a few weeks ago, over thirty kids invited. Up to the day before we had five rsvp. The day before we had 6 more. The day of, seven rsvp, and 4 showed up with no rsvp. We sent invites out two weeks before hand.
If you are RSVP ing hours before a party it really isn’t a rsvp. We didn’t have enough supplies, we were three short I had to run and get stuff and left my hubby in charge. And missed out on the actual party stuff because I was scrabbling to making the stuff after running.
Another issue with not RSVP-ing is that not only do you not know how many people are coming, but also WHO is coming. If any of the guests have dietary restrictions or behavior issues or Annoying Parents Who Won’t Leave, there are ways of planning in advance for that. But if you don’t know for sure if those kids will be coming, then there’s no way of knowing if you’ll need to take precautions.
Another thing I don’t get is when invitations say “RSVP regrets only.” In what universe would it be more useful to know for sure how many people AREN’T coming but not how many people ARE?
I appreciate this. There are a lot of people who have dietary restrictions, and I actually take pleasure in providing something they will enjoy eating. But if they just show up when I didn’t know they were coming (or I’ve provided for them and they don’t show) that is… not so fun.
I was once the only attendant at a girls birthday party — 3rd grade. It was so awkward. I remember even at that young of an age feeling bad.
Although on Monday at school the girl told the teacher no one came to her party & everyone got sort of ..talked to about how nice it is for people to attend others events if they can.
When our moms wanted RSVPs back they would make us go to school & tell our friends at recess “hey you said you were coming but my mom says she needs you to RSVP!” That usually worked and the kids that wanted to be there ran home & made sure their mom called our mom.
I am pretty sure a lot of people don’t RSVP because they dislike the feeling of rejecting an invitation. I do it, but then I feel really awkward sending a NO immediately, like I am saying “There’s NO WAY we’ll ever attend! Thanks though!” So I fret for a week or two and then send it, because like Swistle, I appreciate every response, even if some NO’s bum me out.
When I throw a party, I send an invitation with RSVP instructions, then I do a nagging email a few days before to shake out a few more YES responses. Then I prep for 100% of YES and 50% of the non-responders. That usually gets me in the ballpark for food and drink.
I have NO TOLERANCE for failure to RSVP. I admit that I have at times forgotten to reply, but I am always mortified and apologetic when I do call, and I think that marks me with the “it can happen to anyone” flag. My own theory is that cell phones have fostered a society which does not require solid plans to be made because you can always find people. For example, when I was in high school and wanted to meet a friend in the city, we had to say, “OK, be at the Downtown Crossing T stop at 1:30. I’ll be at the entrance across from Filene’s, next to the bookstore.” And then I had to be there! Because I said I would! So people had to make plans and stick to them. NOW you just arrive in the city and call to find out where your friend is.
I think this transfers along to RSVPs; people don’t want to commit to things because something better might come along, so they just don’t answer and hold open the date. I hate Evite for even offering the “maybe” option, for this reason. People just check “maybe” and then never update! ARGH!
This is an excellent observation!
The “something better might come along” mentality makes me so sad, too…I have a friend who threw a pool party for her son when he turned five and three kids came out of something like fifteen. She felt pretty certain the others waited for a better offer, and that’s just sad. He’s a little kid, man!
The “maybe” button drives me crazy on Evite! Why is that an option? Maybe (ha) that’s part of the problem? It completely smacks of waiting for something better. It’s also contributing to a very casual attitude about RSVPing.
My kids were just invited to a birthday party by Evite, and a lot of the “maybes” were like “if Daden doesn’t win his soccer game this weekend, we’ll be there” or other sports contingencies.
I agree, “maybe” is no better than no reply at all.
The part about “everyone thinks they are the only one who isn’t responding, or thinks everyone else is responding” really struck me. I was in maybe 3rd or 4th grade (in my 30s now) and my class was particularly unruly one day. My teacher said to us “imagine if everyone around you were doing just what you’re doing now, would it be helping or not?” This has stuck with me – if everyone were RSVP-ing, we wouldn’t have this blog post. If everyone picked up trash and recycled, we wouldn’t have an plastic patch in the ocean. If everyone put their dirty dishes in the office dishwasher, we wouldn’t have a sink full of gross plates at the end of the day. And so on. It can be a benefit to consider your actions on a bigger scale – none of us are an island. Thanks to my wise teacher for that lesson.
Remember when you came up with the genius plan for RSVPing regrets with a birthday card, i.e., teaching life skills! avoiding phone calls! ? Maybe this is another said opportunity. If you have the phone number, have the birthday child do phone calls to follow up on non-RSVPs. life skills! avoiding phone calls!
I feel very fortunate because for my 6 y.o’s upcoming party, I already had the email addresses/FB contacts for the parents. I got 100% RSVPs in under 48h. Mind you, it was only 6 familes. Still. impressed. sad that it’s gotten to the point that RSVPing is surprising and impressive.
Yes! Thank you for writing this. I do not understand people who don’t RSVP or won’t apologize for not RSVPing when followed up with.
My friend asked me to co-host a baby shower for another friend and I agreed. We sent out invitations, by mail because this was to be a classy grown up party, to 10 people for a brunch.
A week and a half before the party only 4 people had responded. Because there’s a huge difference between buying and preparing food for 7 people and 13 people, I had to ask the guest of honor for all the non-responders’ email addresses. She gave me 5 of the 6 stating that she’d already provided all the details to the sixth person by email so she was sure that guest would respond. She didn’t so I had to go back to the guest of honor three days before the party and ask for that woman’s email address.
To make this even better, that same woman emailed the day before the party and asked if she could bring her eight year old son because her babysitter cancelled. We said yes and one of the party guests read storybooks loudly to the kid during the gift opening, the one activity we had planned.
I love hosting parties but hate being angry and irritated with my guests so for parties where I’m in control of the guest list, if someone doesn’t RSVP they don’t get invited again. I realize this doesn’t work with children – it’s definitely not their fault; my mom is perpetually late which meant growing up I was always perpetually late but there was nothing I could about it – but for adults, I take a hard line.
RSVP anger. I’ve had it. I had no idea this was an issue until I got married in 1999. Sent out invitations with SASE. The response rate was about 75% with some really stubborn hold outs. I was genuinely surprised. I mean did I have to go to their house and carry them bodily to the mailbox?? The thing is, the people who just could not seem to RSVP were the ones I couldn’t have cared less about if they came or not. Would have been pleased if they’d said no – less food, less booze etc. At my wedding we managed to get the nonresponders down to about 10 people and most of them didn’t show, but two people who never RSVP’d showed up WITH AN ADDITIONAL GUEST.
Last year for Youngest’s 4th birthday, she invited four kids. All said yes and then the day of, three of them bailed. Luckily Youngest’s BFF made it and we just downscaled her expectations which, since it was really her first nonfamily birthday party, were small anyway, but damn I was mad. It’s no surprise that once Youngest finished daycare and moved on to school, I haven’t bothered to keep in touch with any of the families who bailed last minute. I really don’t need that stress.
Those people who don’t RSVP make me see RED. It is the most uncivilized, boorish thing you can do. And now, with email, it’s even easier than ever to do!! But they still won’t do it. There should be a law – along with the proper punishment (oh, I don’t know…making them sit in a fire ant hill and suffer a thousand tiny deaths with each bite?).
Ok, so I just RSVPed that I wouldn’t be coming to a party after all. It was a little awkward because I had to call the mother of the mom-to-be to say I wasn’t coming and we had a very awkward phone conversation. But I did it. Conscience cleared. I just wish there had been an email address or some other method of getting my decline of the event across. But that phone call and the totally predictable awkwardness was the ONLY reason I was putting that off.
Oh, you deserve HUGE PRAISE. Having to do it by phone is so awful. I’d love if EVERYONE would include an email and/or text option if they have it.
I know that every party I’ve taken my older daughter to – they’ve said (as I’ve arrived to drop her off) – she (pointing to my younger daughter, who is 2 years younger) can stay for the party, if you don’t mind! And I always feel like it’s because no one is showing up and a warm body, whoever it is, is better than a party with almost no guests. I wonder (I gave a party in February for adults and the RSVP thing was a pain in the ass) if people don’t even understand what it means anymore? Like they see it on the invitation and just think it’s something people put on invitations and it doesn’t mean anything at all. I don’t know. I think it’s rude and frustrating.
Only after reading the comments did I believe that it would be conceivable that it might in some minds be actually fine not to RSVP. but only if _everyone_ knew that not answering were indeed for code for “regrets.” Because, yeah, that would spare people some awkward exchanges. But clearly that is a false premise because not everyone “knows” that. And also, we do have the phrase “send regrets.” Which means that regrets are SENT.
I think really it’s more often that people figure that it’s no big deal not to reply because supposedly most other people reply and then it doesn’t affect anyone’s feelings/planning TOO much.
That last paragraph drives me mad. That’s just taking advantage of others’ kindness.
Uh-oh I just remembered that I set an invite in the I-can’t-think-about-this-now pile last week. Better go find it! I have a terrible habit of saying yes to everything and then realizing I’m double booked. I also confuse dates with DAYS of the week often (e.g. I think the 9th is a Monday not a Tuesday and then say yes because I don’t have anything on Tuesday) I even have a calendar. I’m dis-graphically hopeless.
Oh, this is so timely for me! We just had my son’s graduation party this past weekend. We originally assumed about 40 would come, but then I sent a Facebook invite, and it seemed that count would be closer to 60, with a bunch of maybes (mainly high schoolers – what a shock). At which point I totally lost my mind over how much food we would need, made my husband buy more meat ($$$), doubled the veggie tray and snacks, and just generally stressed about whether there would be enough. Of course, you know what happened – we had about 40 guests and did not touch the extra meat, lots of extra veggies, and many extra paper products. On a positive note, most of the food was freezable and I don’t need to cook for a while, and we have a daughter graduating in two years who will get to use the extra paper plates, cups, etc. But like many previous commenters, I now promise to RSVP as promptly as possible and not assume people know my intentions!
I’m SO SAD right now for all the kids who had one or none guests show up for their parties. Oh, man.
I know! Me too! I have major anxiety about hosting parties or get-togethers because I am always so nervous that people won’t come! And this post and the comments are further adding to my worries because sometimes they really don’t!
Me TOO. To the extent that I feel like I should stop reading the comments because it is so, so heartbreaking, and so anxiety-provoking when I think of my own kids’ parties.
It doesn’t work for things like weddings (though now that I think about it, why wouldn’t it?) but I have a friend who doesn’t put the location on the invitations. If you RSVP, then you’ll get the location. It’s a good way to know more closely who’s coming.
BRILLIANT!
Oh, INTERESTING IDEA!
Clever!
I guess you’d need to include city and state for weddings, as people come from out of town and some weddings are “destination weddings” and people need to determine if they can come that far.
Ooooh, ingenious!
This sounds good, but I guess it’s assuming it’s all super local? I ask because what if you COULD come if it’s say…up north by your house since sibling has soccer game nearby, but if it’s way downtown you couldn’t drop the invited kid off?
Well…now that I think about it if it was a “maybe depending on location” type situation you would contact the parent to ask the location before RSVPing anyway. So either way, it DOES force the parent to contact you haha.
What is this “better stuff” that might come up? My kid is a toddler, so I don’t yet have to navigate birthday parties, but what could be better for a kid than a party? Or are the parents hoping their friends will invite them hiking or something that weekend? I’m not a big planner and I don’t do many of the hiking activities with friends. Would it feel awkward to say to your single friends, “no I can’t come hiking with you, I’ve got to take Junior to a birthday party”? I prefer very small group activities (2 friends max), so it should be easy enough to say, “What about next weekend?” Do other people think “I can’t let down my beach volleyball team if we decide to play that day”?
All of you people who are not RSVPing are part of why some kids have no one at their parties. Shame on all of you!
As an adult there are some things that you have to do that are not fun. This includes (but is not limited to): paying taxes, flossing, yearly pap smears, any function involving in-laws and being the one who digs the mysterious brown substances out of the cats’ tails. Be an adult and pick up the phone. Or send a text. Or email. Or send a note back through the backpack express.
What I always did when my children were children was to contact the parents of the “critical” attendees. These were two or three kids who really needed to be there for it to feel successful (to my child – not to me). This was done before the date was set. If our date looked good, we went ahead with it. If there were conflicts, I picked a different date. We were never stood up by any of those people.
I agree with all of this. And I always, ALWAYS reply by the date requested (or five-ish days before the party), but I will say that I am sometimes the person who has clearly viewed the evite but not responded yet. This is what happens when the birthday kid is not a close friend of my kids, when making it to the party would require significant logistics, and I am thinking we probably will not go, BUT I am SO upset by these stories of kids throwing parties without anyone showing up that, if there are too many no responses, then we figure it out.
I always assume no RSVP means they are not coming, because that has been how it’s always played out with my kids’ parties. It doesn’t prevent me from being irritated and angry that there are people who don’t RSVP.
Honestly, I think the RSVP is an important way to let me know you even got the invitation. Especially if I have to send it to school, I don’t know if your kid ever even gave it to you. So, if you don’t respond, my best-case-scenario-assumption is that you never even saw the invite. And that’s the approach I’m going to take when I have to track you down and ask for an RSVP. “Hey, did Susie bring home Destiny’s birthday party invitation? I need to finalize the headcount and just wanted to know if you were going to be able to make it.”
Ha – now I see why that was your favourite part of my post. It’s interesting that there actually IS confusion, even with this, about what is the proper thing. I always try to respond as soon as I get the invitation, because my memory is so crappy I know I won’t remember if I put it off. We haven’t had too much trouble with the kids’ parties, but we do have friends who never RSVP to parties – we’re all kind of just used to it, but now I sort of feel like calling them out.
My daughter is almost 21, but I do remember the days when I had to scramble to find out numbers for her parties. We have a small house, so we always had them somewhere-like an ice skating party, or one at a gymnastics place-and to me, it was important to have accurate numbers. I have no problems calling people, and most of the parents I had at least a nodding acquaintance with-so I would call them (we had a school directory), and keep calling them until I was able to contact them and get an answer. It really made me mad though-I think not RSVPing is the height of rudeness.
The one problem I did used to have, parents would come and stay-and bring their smaller children, and we would end up having to pay for them too. It got to where I would make at least 5 extra goody bags, because I felt bad when passing them out, the uninvited little ones looked so sad if they didn’t get a bag. I guess after reading these comments, this is a much better problem to have than no one coming to a party.
I don’t have kids, but I do have a Girl Scout troop, so I know pretty well the struggle that is getting RSVP for events. It drives me crazy! I will say that a “reply by” date helps, and I’ve just accepted that I’m likely going to have to follow up to pin people down. We’ve also tried teach the girls that it comes down to following through on the decisions that you make — even if something better comes along. (Although this does little good if parents don’t reinforce this concept.)
For those that put off responding because they feel uncomfortable for not attending, please don’t let this stand in the way. An immediate but polite no (no explanation needed) is to me a million times better than being left hanging. It shows respect for the person trying to coordinate and allows them to adjust or plan accordingly. Anyone who would try to make you feel guilty or awkward by RSVPing with a no should be ignored.
I gotta tell you: the standard here for kids’ parties is RSVP if attending, and no response if not attending. RSVP’ing just to say your not coming is nice, but I’ve rarely seen it and it doesn’t bother me at all if I don’t hear from someone. This is probably partly because at this point I have the email addresses of the parents my kids are inviting and send the invitations electronically, so I know they got through and don’t have to worry about the reliability of the child-driven paper invitation system.
Weddings are the exception: I’m pretty sure everyone expects a firm yes or no in that case.
This is just one of the reasons that I resent nearly everything involved with kids birthday parties. I know I sound like a big grump, but kids having a friends birthday party nearly every year is bothersome to me because it really is sometimes a hassle for ME especially when the kids are young. The idea of a party right in the middle of a weekend day always feels like it is taking over my free time. I have to drive the kid there, nearly always stay at the party, and then drive back home (not to mention present shopping for a kid you probably don’t know) — which could take up 2-4 hours. There goes my Saturday. When my kids were young, I didn’t want them to contribute to a situation where the kid didn’t have many friends attend because I would feel bad, so we tried to go to most that they were invited to. Now, kids are 11 and 6, our weekends are filled with sports and weekdays are filled with practices, so it usually isn’t possible to attend anyway. Even when we are free, because of all the other places we have to be during the week, I just like some time off. I just wish it wasn’t becoming the default for a kid to have a party nearly every year. That contributes to the mass amount of party invitations that we get. Regarding holding off on RSVPing to make sure nothing better comes up, it isn’t about waiting for a better party or other invite to come up, it is just making sure that RSVPing to the party isn’t going to keep our family from being able to do a more important thing that we might decide to do just because we have committed to a 2 hour timeframe of a kids party just because my kid is in the same class as another kid. And, it sounds bad, but another kid’s birthday party is the very lowest possible priority schedule item in my whole life. I know that doesn’t help with the RSVP situation, but it is the reason why I don’t respond immediately usually. Like I said, I think the bigger problem is that too many friends birthday parties are being thrown these days. If you’re gonna have an event, invite the few best friends whose parents you probably already communicate with fairly often over for whatever and let that be it. Sending invitations to school to kids you don’t know that families of just seems to be inviting the problem of no-shows. Ok – end rant.
Did you see this? http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/style/the-aspirational-rsvp-saying-yes-when-you-mean-no.html
OMG! Aziz Ansari, about 30 minutes into his live at Madison Square Garden, talks about flakiness and making plans!!! Funny funny stuff…
On Netflix streaming, fyi…
Yeh, 22 invitations sent 2 weeks before the party. Another “reminder” sent 1 week before the party. It included a phone number (please call it says so they would know not to text) and an e-mail address for RSVP. I got 7 replies.