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Okay okay, we don't really advocate Facebook shaming. And we totally think Facebook sucks, especially when you're getting married. But, Tribesmaid Stephanienjer did use Facebook to get a leg up on her guests who weren't RSVPing:
Everyone has RSVP woes, I know. The problem is that my deadline for RSVP was four days away, and out of 240 people invited, I could only account for 70. I decided the easiest thing to do (even though it probably wasn't proper) was a Facebook post stating this fact. I then said that with only one week to go, I guess my mailbox will be flooded every day this week.I didn't personally call out my guests, but they called themselves out publicly on my Facebook newsfeed. Out of 240 invitees, I only am short about 25 now. Not too shabby!
Improper? Probably. Effective? Yup.
But if time is on your side, and you want to avoid Facebook on all accounts you could always utilize this cute, non-aggressive, way to remind your guests to send those errant RSVPs.
About the Author: Megan Finley Horowitz
When Megan's not writing, traveling, and sleeping, she's eating like the fate of the world depends on it. (You're welcome, world!) You can snoop into her personal life over on her website The Dash and Dine!
I used Facebook to – nicely – remind people that I need their RSVPs, with private messages. I also told the slackers that they could just send me a message with the RSVP info – it’s the info I really need, not the pretty card, so I thought giving people an easy solution would help me get those missing answers. So far it has!
This is what I did. It took time, but I did get quite a few responses via PM. It’s a new age… you have to adapt.
I most definitely posted about missing RSVPs two days ago (today was our deadline) as we were still lacking about 1/3rd of our guest list. I immediately got a ton of responses either in the thread or privately letting me know if people were coming. No one seemed like it was a breach in etiquette either, most people were just apologetic and happy to let me know.
So, yeah. Definitely an effective route to herding the stragglers in!
I did this too, but for a baby shower. Hardly anyone had responded! I realized people just ignore their mail these days but for crying out loud they pay attention to facebook. So I created a FB event, invited all the same people I had sent paper invites too, then sent a message asking for their reply! SIGH.
It’s funny… if you pay attention, the FIRST people to RSVP to your wedding will be your married girlfriends. They KNOW not to slack and they get on that sh*t right away! HA!
I think the only married women who have RSVPd are our mothers -_-
Even people we KNOW are coming like our officiant and entertainers havent RSVPd. Which, I know they’re coming, but they wanted to bring friends or family, and I need to know if *theyre* coming for sure or not.
I have to admit that I’ve actually been IN weddings for which I either didn’t RSVP, or RSVP’d late. The last wedding I was a bridesmaid in, it was just days before the wedding and I was with the bide’s side at a co-ed campout bachelorette party when she turned to me and said “BTW, will you send in your RSVP card already?” Oops! These days, I give the bride and groom a heads-up over e-mail or Facebook, then send out the card ASAP.
I was planning on calling people out on Facebook simply because I dont have most of their phone numbers. Its almost the month of our wedding and hardly anyone has RSVP’d. I was going to make a group or event page side every time i make a wedding status i get an “I can’t wait!” or “im invited, right?” when we weren’t planning on having them there
I totes did this with private messages, and eventually, posts on specific people’s walls. At one point, we Facebooked, called, texted, and emailed a specific in-town friend about his RSVP. He didn’t respond to any contact until the Monday of the wedding week saying he was going to attend. Perhaps in the most flagrant episode of bridezilla-ness, I told him that while he was welcome to join later in the reception, we would not have a seat for him at the ceremony site (which had 10 fewer chairs on site than they originally told us) or food for him at the reception (because I felt vengeful). Lo and behold, he is the first guest I saw when walking down the aisle with my dad, and it totally pissed me off. Oh well.
Omgosh that’s so rude of him 🙁 Assuming he doesn’t have an on-call job or unpredictable schedule, I don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to tell you they’re coming in a timely manner.
Proper schnoper~ If it worked then it was perfect. Proper is a word that means 1. only doing things the most difficult way possible 2. resorting to passive aggressive crap to try to get shit done. Bah! on Proper. Bah I say! I think you were in your rights and really brilliant to try some social shaming!
I did this as well, but early on I made a specific friends list for wedding guests only. With two weeks to go I put out a status (that only guests could see) about RSVPs being due and the date that the hotel block would be available for. With one week to go I had about 60% of my RSVPs in and I made another status that was only visible to those that hadn’t yet RSVP’d. I don’t know how effective it really was, but it seemed to help and didn’t target individuals.
I messaged people on Facebook and texted many of our friends, as well. I got an almost immediate response from them when I informed them that “FYI, the hotel block closes on xx, hope you can make it!” for the out-of-towners.
Unfortunately, my biggest RSVP-thorn-in-my-side was my husband’s family…I actually never received official RSVPs from any of them (even his parents) and just had a text from his mom a week after the deadline that said there would be “6, maybe 8-10” of his extended family coming to the wedding. Getting those names and official numbers for the seating chart was like pulling teeth. I love his family, though, even if they bring out my Type A in spades!
I do not understand the Facebook hate at all. I used it for gentle reminders (not shaming!) and it worked perfectly. It was a great tool for keeping in touch with guests and vendors and now we’re all sharing the love two days after and I can’t get enough of my news feed.
This is great… if the guests that are not RSVP’ing are on Facebook, but what about Great Aunt Matilda? I tried electronic RSVPs for my wedding, we didn’t send out anything that required our guests to mail anything back. We got a good number of RSVPs through the wedding website, but there were still a hand-full that didn’t respond.
Note— it’s always FAMILY and your WEDDING PARTY who seem to be the biggest culprits. They don’t RSVP because they think you KNOW they’re coming, but then you forget to stuff your numbers with those guests…
http://offbeatwed.com/2011/09/rsvp-reminders
What about all your Facebook friends who weren’t invited to the wedding? Or crazy stalker chicks/clueless casual acquaintances who think that generic Facebook RSVP reminder = invitation? I think it’d be pretty awkward to have people commenting on your status like “where’s my invite?” or “I’ll be there, and btw I’m bringing the kids and Great-Aunt-Bethel!” Unless you don’t have any non-close Facebook friends (and really, most people have quite a few old high school friends or distant relatives on there they haven’t gotten around to deleting yet, I know I do), I think RSVP reminders should be kept private. Call them, text them, heck even inbox them! Don’t call them out in a status. It might lead to hurt feelings or party crashers.
You can actually create private lists on Facebook so that only those people invited to the wedding can see your reminder status or things related to the wedding. I did that to avoid hurt feelings as well!
I did a Facebook message round up of those I could, simply because I don’t have email address for the majority of my guests! With Facebook messages, I haven’t had the need for an email for friends for years.
My message was like this:
“Hey, I haven’t seen your RSVP for the wedding yet. Are you guys able to come? You can message me back or we have an RSVP page on our website here: [enter yours here if you have it]
Can you let me know by next week? I need to have a head count in to the caterer by [your due date].
Thanks!!
<3"
I just did this within the hour and I've already had half the people I messaged say they lost the card or whatever but of course they're coming, they wouldn't miss it!
So Facebook isn't ideal, but you have to go with what's most convenient to people, and these days it's Facebook.
Bottom line, I'm glad I sent my messages and even more glad I am getting responses!
Literally 2 days after we sent out all the invites we started phoning/contacting all the guests for their TSVP’s. The due date for it was still around 2 weeks away at that time, but honestly, we sent out STD’s 6 months before the wedding too, by that time the guests knew whether they’ll be able to make it. Don’t wait for the RSVP date, just ask ask ask. Annoy them into submission haha! That’s what we did. And we never had any problems, except for 1 or 2 last minute changes. It’s not impolite at all. Our guests understood that we had to have the numbers ASAP.