Birthday Party RSVP Question

I just went through this with my daughter. I invited 15 kids to an indoor playplace where you had to pay for everyone and order food in advance. Her birthday is in the summer so I gave her classmates a save the date right before school ended. Then I mailed out invites a few weeks before the party. I also made an event through facebook and invited family and some of the kids whose moms I'm friends with. So about 4 days before the party, I only had about 5 kids rsvp, after all that notice to everyone. I ended up having to call, email and text everyone to ask if they were coming. I may have made myself look a fool hounding everyone lol, but if it made my kid happy then so be it. We ended up with 10 kids rsvp'ing and then 2 kids just showed up without letting me know.

So my advice, even though maybe you shouldn't have to, follow up with everyone.

I'd call or e-mail them or knock on their door to find out. People are busy and things get lost, especially in the summer when schedules are crazy. I am so careful about this but have screwed up on occasion. A lot of people these days just don't think this is important. Then estimate a bit high in case. One thing to watch out for too is moms bringing a sibling you didn't expect. Good luck!

This is so frustrating. Why is it so hard in a day in age with so many ways to communicate for people to respond? I just don't get it so I make a point of always RSVPing right away. It's possible the electronic invites didn't make it, but I doubt it.
For my party, the ones who didn't respond, didn't come. So, I wouldn't make up the extra bags if I were you. I would just look really surprised in any extra show up and say something like- oh, we didn't expect you because you didn't RSVP. If more people did that, maybe more people would be polite?

If it's not too many people, I would call them just to be sure. And next time, maybe an RSVP Regrets Only would work better - for whatever reason, I tend to get more accurate counts that way, be it for something informal like a casual BBQ or all the way up to a shower.

This is such a huge pet peeve of mine. I always send birthday party invitations in the mail because I know it's fun for young kids to get actual mail. I've begun using the phrase "please reply to . . . by . . ." and giving a phone and e-mail address for replies because most people just don't understand that RSVP means to reply either way. And "regrets only" somehow means "we'll show up if we feel like it and we'll just blow the whole thing off if we don't." I concluded that after being horribly over-prepared for two graduation parties. (Can you believe I didn't learn the first time?) Thanks for letting me vent.

For my youngest daughter's party last month, we invited 23 kids. By the time my "reply by" date rolled around, I hadn't heard from nine of them. I drafted a very nice e-mail to all of their parents expressing my need to know how many kids I was planning for. I had instant e-mail responses from nearly all of them apologizing for not having responded sooner. Everyone seems to know that it's rude not to reply, but there is a huge chunk of society that just can't seem to get it together to say yes or no to an invitation in a timely manner. I really don't get it, especially when it's so easy to accept or beg off electronically. You used to have to actually call and make your apologies on the phone.

Bottom line is, you have to follow up with those who don't contact you if you don't want to be horribly over or under prepared. If you're paying per kid, I'd definitely talk to those you haven't heard from.

The thing about email invites, is they can only respond if they receive them. I was sent an email invite once and it was sent straight to my spam. I never saw it, and missed a party :( In general, people are terrible about sending an RSVP. It's very rude, but that's how things seem to be. I would just do the extra goody bags like you planned. I'm sure a few will show up, who didn't RSVP.

This has gotten to be very frustrating for me. With techonology these days it's so very easy to call, email or text an RSVP. Look around...EVERYONE is always on looking at their phones! I personally think it's very rude not to RSVP. I used follow up with a call/email and say, "I need to get a count for _____'s party, and I haven't gotten your RSVP yet." Instead, now when someone shows up that I didn't get an RSVP from, I say, "Gosh, I didn't hear from you, so I didn't think _____ was coming"

I send out a reminder to everyone individually. If I get no response, I don't save a spot for their kid. We do a lot of parties on base where we need to get access for our guests, if they don't respond in time, they literally are not allowed to come. What I don't get, is we all know how annoyed we get when we get no response to the invites we send out for our kids, so why don't we all respond either way?

I would following up with a phone call to any who have not replied one way or the other. If you don't have a number, you could email them and state..."I hadn't heard from you so wasn't sure if I should plan on you attending or not. Please let me know ASAP so we are prepared."

Interesting what Bug said about the email invite going to spam. I was wondering if that would happen to some. (I know for some reason emails from my son's soccer coach goes to spam and I always have to check the stupid file...)
Seriously: this is Thursday night. I would plan on only who said they'd come, maybe have one goodybag on hand that can either go to a sibling or an extra guest. It's lame as heck that people do that! As much as I see people playing with their stupid iphones, there's no reason why they can't email, text, or phone when actually asked to. On the other hand, for some reason, you may not get a big turn out for the party. Be prepared for that...One of my son's classmates had a party at an indoor playground (castle, dressup area, train tables, dinosaur area, full kitchen, cars to ride in, 5 bounch house things to play in, pizza and cake): how awesome!!! But my son and 1 or 2 other girls (out of a class of 17) showed up. That's sad. But I acted like I didn't even notice.....we let the kids play together, I introduced myself to the moms that were there and we just had fun. But I could see the mom hosting the party was a little troubled that only 3 children showed up. Of course I rsvp'd the day after I got the invite and put it on my calendar. She did have on the invitation "Please rsvp by ___" but I don't know what happened there. When my sons' parties come up, if it's at my home I don't really care so much. But if we're having a party somewhere, where I get charged per person and need to prepay, I am going to have a "Please rsvp by ___ so we can make arrangements". On that night, I'll phone people to ask straight up. If I don't get an answer by that date, oh well.

Call them all and ask if they are coming.
It's a pain, but you'll have an answer.
LBC

I've learned from experience to send a reminder email to those you emailed, and call those you hand delivered to. I invited a lot of people with hand made invitations to my son's 1st birthday and asked for RSVP regrets, and didn't get them so assumed a lot of people were coming...they didn't. Hardly anyone did. I really wished I had followed up somehow. With it being 2 weeks ago they probably forgot. Best of luck with the party!

Well, having two kids of my own, I was not always thrilled with the lack of RSVP.
However, I did have parents who were diligent about it, asked for gift suggestions, etc. Many of the rest would just show up or not.
I always did handmade invitations and followed up with a phone call. If someone couldn't make it, fine. But......and this is a BIG but, if we invited 10 kids, we had enough for 10 kids. We certainly had kids show up that we weren't sure about and we had kids NOT show up that we thought would be there.
You make it a fun party regardless. If there's leftover pizza and cake, we always divied it up. If kids had younger siblings who didn't come, we sent an extra bag home for them.
We just never invited more than we could budget for and we proceeded as if all the kids would come. My daughter had one little friend who very early on said she'd be there, but she got sick. Her dad brought the present to the party. We sent her with a piece of cake and a goody bag and an extra special thank you for not just blowing the whole thing off. It was very thoughtful of them to follow through the best they could.

E-vites in theory would be great if people actually saw them.
My aunt sent me a picture of my cousin's new baby and it went to spam.
These things happen.
Little kids also forget to give their parents invitations until the last minute.
There's not really a perfect way that I've found to have everthing go off without a hitch so you just plan like everyone will come and go from there.
I know that my kids most successful parties were held at bowling allies. We supplied the pizza, the cake, the shoe rental, etc. We always had a full house for that.
One thing I do want to say is that Summer birthday parties can be tough.
My son was born in late June. Everyone scatters to the winds for vacations, etc at that time.
We started having his birthday parties before school let out so that his friends could all be there.
I'm a December baby. So is my sister.
We were either gone out of town visiting our relatives on Christmas vacation or our friends were doing the same thing. It was terrible trying to have a birthday party with all the other holiday hub-bub.
In your case, summer is winding down. School starts here on the 24th. People are out of town, they are shopping for school clothes and last minute supplies.
You might have to get creative with the timing of your parties. Definitely have this one and see how it goes, but be open to the idea of doing something special on her actual birthday and having the party at a time, either before or after, that is easier for people to attend.
My son grew very accustomed and was happy having his party 2 to 3 weeks early because that's when all his friends could come.
My sister and I actually had our parties in June when no one was worried about the Holidays.
Like I said, it helps to get creative in the planning and then keep things to a manageable number assuming everyone will come.

You'll get it figured out as you go along.
Very best wishes and I hope you all have a great time!

Could the email have been caught in anyone's spam folder? You could try forwarding the invite to each family who hasn't responded and just say, "Hi! I understand this may have been caught in your spam filter. Hoping you can come - please let me know one way or the other!" - I imagine you'll get some more responses. You never know. Happy birthday to your little one!

Call or email and "remind them" in paper... send a reminder in and ask the preschool teacher to send them home today. We had to do this and got the rest of the RSVP's!

Don't assume they are not coming and don't assume that siblings won't be attending! We invited my son's 12 preschool buddies and asked that one parent stay (at a zoo). With the RSVP, MANY indicated that both parents would be attending and asked if sibs could come. It was fine with us (wasn't a per person fee) and we had easy food, but the "number" who attended was nearly double our original estimate!

Extra goodie bags and extra food!

I know the feeling! And, unfortunately, I have discovered that I usually get a better response if I give people a little more than two weeks, but that could just be me. Although technology makes things more easily accessible, sometimes people don't get around to accessing it right away! LOL. I think a lot of times people may see something and either not read it, or they read it and decide they have to check their calendar, check with their husband, check their account for money :) and they'll get back to later. And you know how that goes, "later" never comes!

I think a "just checking in with you" phone call is more than appropriate and many times people feel bad that they forgot or missed the RSVP deadline. Hope your daughter has a wonderful, blessed Birthday!