Have you ever had a bad experience with gathering RSVPs? Whether you’re planning a birthday party, reunion, wedding day or other types of events managing RSVPs can be challenging. To help you out, we’ve provided you with techniques to avoid common frustrations. You have enough to worry about when planning an event, here are a few tips to make sending out invitations and gathering RSVPs less stressful.


Make sure your invitation has all the pertinent details

The two important must-haves for an invitation are Time and Location. Your guests should be able to know the exact time and location of your event in the body on the invitation so they can make sure they are available. When sharing the location, be sure that the invitation includes the exact address so that guests can use GPS to lookup directions. If the location of the address does not show up in services like Google Maps, be sure to include written directions as well. Also consider if you need so share parking instructions with guests and if the reception is at the hotel, including accommodations the hotel offers can be very helpful to some.

Add a compelling description of the event

While it always helps to be descriptive, be sure to keep it short so that guests get all of the important details you need them to know. Try to keep the description under 300 characters if possible and add the most interesting tidbits at the beginning. Do your best not to include opinions or even rhetoric here to keep things brief. You could also include special guests that will attend the event to generate interest and lastly, include a captivating picture to set the mood!

Let guests know if it is acceptable to bring additional guests or invite others to the event

Oh no! Jenny invited a friend and you are already at capacity, what will you do? It’s best to share these limitations up front to avoid this situation as much as possible. Let the guests in a polite manner that you cannot accommodate additional guests or that they only invite a certain amount of people. Many apps like Invitd allow you to control this in the event settings. If someone does happen to invite another guest it’s your choice to allow them to attend but at least you will have confidence in saying “No” since you shared this information up front. Just keep in mind that this might add additional cost on the reception once the event is over if you allow additional guests.





What about children?

Similarly to the last tip, it’s best to share if children are welcome to attend the event when you send out the invitation to avoid confusion or awkward situations. While it can seem like an easy decision to allow or not allow children, there are a few things to consider. You would have to inform properly to the invitation sent that children is not allowed in the first place. Parents are much more likely to decline attending if kids are not allowed. There can be many reasons but difficulty finding a sitter or having anxiety about leaving their kids are two popular reasons. Before you make this decision, be sure to consider the parent’s point of view and if you can make the event enjoyable for everyone.

Should you allow refunds for paid guests that cancel?

When a guest cancels, it’s easy to take it personally and blame the guest. However, they might have specific reasons on why they were not able to make it. The value of your relationship with the guest matters most so it’s best to consider your options. If you can easily replace the guest then a refund isn’t a huge deal and it’s best to grant the refund with the hope of that guest returning in the future. However, most guests will accept a no refund policy if you need to enforce it. If you aren’t able to grant a refund, consider offering a special discount or credit to a future event to lighten the bad news.

Other minor failures and potential solutions

Guests ignoring the invitation or not responding - Be sure to send a reminder or two to RSVP, sometimes people just get distracted and forget to respond. If you still don’t get a response after multiple reminders there is a good chance they won’t be attending and feel bad saying “No”.

Guests attending who didn’t RSVP - The solution is to just let them attend the event but be straightforward. Let them know that they may not receive the same accommodations as invited guests and the reason why. Just make it sure that you are polite to help influence them to attend future events.

Pick an RSVP app that helps you avoid these potential issues.

If you want your event to pursue without the hassle of printing and preparing massive numbers of envelopes, you should check out Invitd. Invitd is a free text invitation app that allows event hosts to send invites by text message and manage their RSVPs right through the app. Hosts have sent over 6 million invitations through the app and we have learned a lot about managing invitations and RSVPs. Learn more about Invitd at https://invitd.us