Modern Mom: I'll get back to you
RSVP: “Répondez s'il vous plait,” or, in plain English, “please respond.” So why don’t people? My son’s birthday party is in three days. I mailed the invitations six weeks ago and asked people to kindly RSVP ten days prior to the party. I thought that was reasonable. And yet, here we are, just three days away and nine people still haven’t gotten back to me. There are pizzas to order, goody bags to put together, and a cake to buy, and yet I don’t know how many people are coming. The place where we’re holding the party needs a final count and I need to estimate, which means I may well end up paying for some of the non-responders who turn out to be no shows.
I’d like to assume that if people don’t respond it means they’re not coming. But at my nephew’s party last weekend, five people who couldn’t find the time to RSVP turned out for the celebration. My sister ran out of goody bags. Believe me, I get it…we’re all busy, we’re all managing schedules deserving of color-coded spreadsheets, and we all have tons of correspondence to deal with. But please, take a moment to respond…and in turn, I promise there will be plenty of goody bags and pizza for everyone.
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3 comments:
Exactly. I am hosting a baby shower for a good friend of mine this Saturday and I have 6 out of 18 invited guests who have not responded. I'm hosting this shower at my house as a luncheon with food to prepare and favors to purchase. I would think that people would realize the importance of RSVPs and have the common courtesy to the hostess to actually respond. Showers, birthday parties, whatever they may be, are expensive and time consuming to host. As a guest, is it unreasonable to expect a timely response of a simple Yes or No?
You may have done this, but I'd like to suggest an email address for RSVP's. I've been invited to 2 children's b-day parties lately and when I think of responding it's usually 6:00pm when I see the invite on the counter. This seems like the wrong time for the mom on the receiving end but the time I remember to do so. 8:00am, the other time I see the invite on my counter, is not convenient for me.
I was recently invited to a shower that had an email for the RSVP and I thought that was a wonderful idea! I didn't know the people I was responding to so it made it so much easier to send an email. Maybe that is not proper etiquette but for a full-time working mom, responding via email was a no brainer!
My story is sad. I try to have parties for my kids and I always get no RSVP's and no shows and come the party I get a sad little face asking where her friends are when only my adult people show up. When my daughter was in preschool I didn't get one child to attend. Now she's in school entering 1st grade, RSVP dead line is tomorrow and I have yet to hear from 8 of her little friends from school. I have two so far coming so at least for this party there will be a kid there. During the school year I brought my daughter to every party she was invited to. I also was Room Mother and busted my butt all school year with classroom parties and donating goods and at the end of the school year I even made each child a slideshow DVD of the school year for memory keepsake. Now it's my daughters turn for a party and it looks like I am going to get crapped on once again. I don't know why other parents act the way they do. When you get an invite you should always stop what you are doing and picture the face of the child the invite is for and picture for a second of what that child will look like if her friends can't come to play for an hour or two. If everyone would do that then maybe more RSVP's would happen and maybe two hours out of our lives to make a child's day would happen.
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