The "Waiting Game"

Oh my goodness...other brides are right – checking the mail is SO much fun! No, not everyday is fun, but when you’ve spent countless hours working on your invitations, and then you send them off in the mail, you start to anxiously await the RSVPs in the mail. Other brides have written about how much fun they have going to the mail box, and they’re right! It’s a blast.

You see, I don’t normally check my mail everyday. We have a PO Box in town near my office for most of the bills, and then get mainly junk mail at home. So, I try to stop and collect the bills once or twice a week and then we check the mail box at the house even less frequently. Until now! Now, I’m checking that bad boy each and every mail day!

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For the first few days it was one or two at a time. Then one day I got none. The next day there were three...and the following day there were EIGHT! I was so excited to take each one home and check it out. See who was planning on attending and who might not be. And this was a big question for us, because like most brides out there today, I invited more people than we really have space for at our venue. I figure this is ok, since the average acceptance rate is around 75%, right? Even though I know this, and I’ve talked to plenty of other brides, friends, family and vendors...I was still sweating when the first 15 or so RSVPs were all marked “yes.”

That’s good news, don’t get me wrong. But I’ll also admit that there was a little sigh of relief to get a few that were marked “no” as well.

But let me ask you this question. Now that the initial rush seems to be passing, is it normal to experience a lull or lag in responses? There are still almost two full weeks before the deadline that was printed on the RSVP passes, but I didn’t get one single note all weekend long. Not Friday. And not Saturday. That is perplexing to me. I have a theory though, and to me it seems that the longer people wait to respond back...the greater the chance is that they’re not coming. Did you find that to be true?

The bride inside of me that over-invited is a little relieved. But the bride inside me that wants a good turn-out is a little worried. I think that it’s normal to get a rush of responses right at the beginning and then a rush of responses more towards the deadline...but this waiting game is killing me! Lucky for me, when I collected addresses to build our database, I also collected phone numbers and email addresses. Yes, I fully expect to have to track people down to get an answer out of them. And that’s ok. I was one of those people for Maid Britney’s wedding last year. I’m a tad bit ashamed to admit the fact now, but I was one of those guests that had to be emailed (or IMed) to see if we were attending or not.

Now that I’m the bride, and I know all that rests on the number of guests coming to your wedding, I don’t think that I’ll ever be that person again. I vow right now to always send my RSVP in before the deadline...and as soon as I can, to be honest.

Did you experience this too? A rush of RSVPs hitting your mailbox right away...and then a little pause? How many people did you have to “track down” to get an answer our of? Just wondering...