How many questions is too many?

Past six or seven, replies start dropping. Anything you can look up yourself, or ask a small group about later, is worth cutting.

Should the RSVP be one page or several?

One. Every extra step loses people, particularly on a phone, which is where most guests answer.

What if someone answers wrongly?

Let them change it from the same link. The alternative is that they email you and you edit a spreadsheet by hand.

Guides

What to ask on an RSVP, and what to leave out

5 min read

Every extra question costs you replies. Every missing question costs you a week of messages. This is how to land between the two.

Ask what you will act on

The test for any question is simple: what will you do differently depending on the answer? If nothing changes, do not ask it. Meal choice changes the catering order. Song requests change the playlist. "How excited are you?" changes nothing.

The other test is who else needs the answer. If a supplier will ask you for it, ask your guests for it once, in the same place, rather than gathering it twice.

The four that earn their place

Are you coming. How many of you. What do you eat. Anything we should know. Those four cover most events, and the last one catches everything you did not think of, from a wheelchair to a nut allergy to somebody arriving late from a flight.

Ask meals per person rather than per party. A family of four rarely eats the same way, and a single "two vegetarians" answer sends you back to them for names.

Phrase the headcount so you can count it

"Will you bring anyone?" gets you "maybe my sister". "How many adults, and how many children?" gets you numbers. Split children by age if catering or seating cares: a six-year-old and a sixteen-year-old are different orders and different chairs.

If you invited named guests, ask for their names too. It costs the guest nothing and it is what makes place cards and a seating plan possible later.

Travel questions belong to destination events only

Flights, arrival times, airport pickups and hotel nights are exactly right for a wedding abroad and pure friction for a birthday down the road. Switch them on when they are load-bearing and off when they are curiosity.

The same goes for accommodation. If you have blocked rooms, ask. If you have not, a list of hotels on the event website answers the question without adding a field.

Make the maybes a real answer

People who are unsure will not reply at all if the only options are yes and no. Give them maybe and you learn something instead of nothing, and you can follow up with that group specifically as the date gets closer.

Set a deadline and let reminders chase. The people who never answered and the people who said maybe are two different lists, and they need two different messages.

Collect the answers while you are at it

MyEventOS turns the invitation, the RSVP and the guest list into one link, and counts the replies as they land. Free to design, free to send, and the first ten replies are included.

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