Guests
Wedding RSVP wording: what to ask your guests, with 8 examples to copy
The reply-by date, the four or five questions your caterer and your seating plan actually need, the ones to leave off the card, and eight wordings you can print or put online.
Key takeaways
6 weeksbefore the wedding: the reply-by date to print. Early enough for the caterer and the seating plan, late enough for guests to know their plans.
- An RSVP card asks guests whether they are coming by a set date: put that date about six weeks before the wedding, and write an actual date rather than “as soon as possible”.
- Only ask what someone will use: attendance, the number of adults and children, the meal choice if there is one, dietary needs, and the shuttle or accommodation if you are arranging them.
- One reply per household is enough: a couple or a family answers once for everyone in it.
- Online RSVPs add themselves up; paper cards have to be typed into a spreadsheet by hand, but they still suit guests who don’t use a smartphone.
In this guide
A wedding of 120 guests usually means fifty to sixty households. That is fifty to sixty replies to open, type into a spreadsheet and recount when an aunt rings to say there will be four of them after all. The RSVP card is the first planning tool you hand out, long before the seating plan, so every line on it is worth weighing.
A reply-by date, written as a date
A specific date gets more replies than a polite phrase. “Kindly reply by 15 May” gives everyone a deadline; “at your earliest convenience” slides to next week, and then the week after.
If the invitations go out four months before the wedding, set the reply-by date about six weeks before. Any earlier and guests don’t know their plans yet, so they guess; any later and you run out of time to chase, call the caterer back and seat everyone. The full timeline, save-the-dates included, is in when to send wedding invitations, and the messages for late repliers in wedding RSVP reminders.
Many stationery guides, in the US especially, suggest three to five weeks. That works if your caterer takes final numbers late and you have few guests to chase. Six weeks leaves room for the two reminders and the phone calls that almost every wedding needs.
What an RSVP card should ask
- The household’s name, as you invited them: “The Martin family”, “Claire and Hugo”
- Attendance: yes, no, or yes to part of it (the ceremony, the reception, the brunch the next day)
- How many adults and how many children, plus the children’s ages if the caterer does a kids’ menu
- The meal choice, only if the menu offers one
- Dietary needs, as a short list
- The shuttle or accommodation, only if you are organising and booking them
- A line for a short message, which guests fill in more often than you would think
Every line should be useful to somebody: the caterer, the coach company, or you when you do the seating plan. A question whose answer nobody reads slows everyone else down.
What to leave off
- “Who are you bringing?”: decide on plus-ones before you print (plus-one etiquette) and name them on the envelope. An open line means meeting a stranger on the day
- Postal addresses: you already have them, or the invitation wouldn’t have arrived
- A free-text allergy box by default: it is health information, and a short list is almost always enough
- The gift list or registry: it belongs on your wedding website, not on the card asking whether people can come
8 RSVP wordings to copy
| Tone | Wording |
|---|---|
| Traditional | Mr and Mrs …… accept with pleasure ☐ decline with regret ☐ the invitation to the wedding of Claire and Hugo. Kindly reply by 15 May 2027. |
| Simple | Joyfully accepts ☐ Regretfully declines ☐ Number attending: … Please reply by 15 May. |
| Relaxed | Wouldn’t miss it ☐ Can’t make it, but we’ll raise a glass to you ☐ How many of you? … By 15 May, please! |
| With children | Adults: … Children: … Children’s ages: … (there is a children’s menu for under-12s) |
| With a meal choice | For each adult, tick one: Sea bass ☐ Chicken ☐ Vegetable risotto ☐ |
| Several events | We will be there for: the ceremony ☐ the reception ☐ Sunday brunch ☐ |
| With a shuttle | We’ll take the 1 a.m. shuttle back to town ☐ We’ll make our own way home ☐ |
| With an online RSVP | Reply in a minute by scanning this QR code, or at the address printed below. You can also send this card back by 15 May. |
The names, dishes and dates are only examples: swap in your own, and keep one tone from start to finish. A card that is formal on one line and jokey on the next reads as if two people wrote it.
Paper cards, online RSVPs, or both
Paper cards have two real advantages: people keep them, and they work for guests who don’t have a smartphone or would rather not use one for this. Their drawback is arithmetic: each reply has to be typed in by hand, and each change of plan is sorted out over the phone.
An online RSVP counts itself. On Weddtap it works by household: attendance, the number of adults and children and their ages, each person’s meal if you offer a choice, dietary needs from a short list, attendance at each event, the shuttle and accommodation if you switch them on, and a message for you. The free-text box for the caterer only appears if you turn it on. If a household changes its mind, the same reply is updated, so you never count one family twice.
What Weddtap doesn’t do: it doesn’t print your cards. The QR code that opens your wedding website is free to make with the QR code generator, and the print-ready poster comes with the paid Invitation plan. Plenty of couples keep a very short paper card, with the QR code and the reply-by date, and leave the details to the online form.
Founder of Weddtap · author of our guides
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Frequently asked questions
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