Five RSVP Secrets You Need to Know

The best way to keep track of your wedding RSVP’s is to stay organized and efficient. In this post, we give your our top five tips for tracking RSVP’s to help save your time and effort for the fun parts of wedding planning!

It is always said that planning a wedding is stressful. The truth? 99% of wedding planning is fun and exciting! The stressful 1% includes keeping track of your RSVPs. Unfortunately, as much as we may love them, wedding guests are not always the best when it comes to responding to your invitation. We are sharing our tips and tricks to tracking down those RSVPs so your wedding planning process is 100% stress-free!

Years of experience in the stationery biz has taught us the RSVP secrets that you need to be using throughout your wedding planning process to ensure organization and accuracy with your RSVP guest count!

1. Use Your ABC's and Your 123's

   When you are finished creating your guest list, number each guest row in Excel. Then write that number in pencil on the back corner of each RSVP card. This will help you keep track of RSVP cards that come back with no name on them! And yes this tends to happen a lot (sigh). This way, if a card is returned to you with no name, simply look at the number written on the back and cross check it with your guest list. You can even use a black light pen in lieu of a pencil!

   Hint: When numbering your Excel guest list, do not use the row number. Instead create a whole new column with new numbers so if you add any rows, your numbering stays the same.

2. Organization is Excel(lent)

   Before you even think about sending out invitations, you should have an excel sheet of your guest list. When the RSVPs do start coming in, you will have a central document where you can keep track of all the RSVPs you have received. This will also help with keeping track of who still needs to respond.

3. Going Digital

   Adding an RSVP link on your website will give your guests another way to respond and make it even easier for them to RSVP! Most wedding websites have a built in RSVP option that is easy to add, so don't feel like you have to be a computer whiz to figure this one out. We recommend theknot.com and minted.com for building a wedding website with RSVP options.

4. Trouble with Too Much Time

   When setting your RSVP cutoff date (the date by which guests should respond), do not set the date for too long after the invitation was sent. It is good to put a little bit of pressure on your guests to get their responses in on time. Giving guests any more than 6 weeks to respond will likely cause them to put it off and eventually forget to respond. The ideal response time is 3-4 weeks before your wedding.

5. When It Pays to Procrastinate

   The unfortunate reality of wedding planning is that not all guests respond to your invitations before the RSVP date, which can create frustration when trying to tally up final guest counts, making a seating chart, telling your caterer guest count, etc. We recommend starting your seating chart two-three weeks before since, unfortunately, not all your responses will be in at the one-month mark. Creating your seating chart at two-three weeks will allow a little cushion for those last few responses to come in, and will allow you a two week cushion to track down those last pesky RSVPs.

We hope this helps you stay organized with your RSVP’s and enjoy wedding planning!

How To Not Drink At A Christmas Party

Sometimes people want to watch how much they drink, give their alcohol intake a break for awhile, or are in recovery. Alcohol served at holiday parties can be a particular challenge. The non-drinking party guest wants to be a part of the group, to join in the festivities, to enjoy the camaraderie of their fellow seasonal revelers, but they want to do it sober. Can it be done? Oh yeah. Millions of people do it every year.

First, if you are in early recovery, or for whatever reason feel particularly uncomfortable about attending a party where alcohol will be served, you can always not go. That’s a real option. People may miss you, but it’s a lot better than jeopardizing some hard-won sobriety.Second, know that at most parties most people do not get drunk. Lots of people will only have one. Some people will not drink at all. If you’re a heavy drinker, I bet you never noticed that before. If you decide not to drink at a Christmas party, you will probably not be the only one.Let’s say you’re a former heavy drinker who wants to do the holidays sober, or are alcoholic in recovery, and will be attending a festive party where beer, wine, and spirits will be offered. Here are some tips. You can do them all:

1) Go with someone, or meet them there, who knows your intention to not drink.

2) Have an escape plan. For example, drive your own car to the event. If you have to leave, just leave. It’s not a big deal.

3) When asked what you want to drink, say soda or diet coke or sprite or whatever soft drink. Keep that drink in your hand throughout the evening.

4) If someone asks why you’re not drinking, which may not happen because most people won’t notice, just say “Not this evening.”

5) Have a great time. Smile. If this is your first Christmas party sober, you will most likely be surprised how much you’ve missed by drinking in the past.

And one last bit of advice: If you still want to put a lampshade on your head, go ahead. It’s actually more fun sober.

Have a great holiday season and check out our blog for more content!

It's easy to say that Halloween is by far the best holiday. Why? Here's 13 reasons why we love Halloween. Did I miss anything? 

1. Candy (duh!)

2. Dressing up in your favorite costume

3. Later curfews

4. An Excuse to watch scary movies

5. Black cats

6. A reason you gained 5 pounds

7. Zombies are everywhere!

8. ABC Family's 13 Days of Halloween

9. Parties are more fun when you're dressed up

10. Halloween Decorations

11. An Excuse to scare your neighbor's kids

12. Orange beer

13. Thanksgiving and Christmas are just months away (this could also be a bad thing..)

And in honor of #10, here is a FREE Printable! Now there's no excuse for not decorating.

To download freebie, click here.