How to respond to guests who missed rsvp deadline

I would directly reach out to guests you haven't heard from by the RSVP deadline, with something along the lines of, "I just wanted to remind you that our RSVP deadline was [date], and we haven't heard back from you yet! When you get a minute, can you please submit your RSVP by [new date] so we can give a final count to our vendors and ensure we have food for everyone? If we don't hear back from you, we will assume that you are not attending."

Some people really are not empathetic to late rsvps. There is no tactful way to say that, and if that is the case of your true feelings, perhaps they should not have been invited and friendships reevaluated. .


Keep in mind that many will arrive in the mail on the deadline day. You start calling people * no earlier * than the afternoon/evening of the rsvp due date after you get all existing replies tallied, and you continue nonstop until you have gone down the list. What you say is “we are calling to confirm if you will be attending our wedding because our caterer needs an accurate headcount. If you are unable to attend, you will be missed.” Do not hang up until they say yes or no, because they will not get back to you. Do not be snarky.

Like PPs suggested, the people who haven’t RSVP’d should be contacted directly via phone or in-person, not a blanket post/email. This should be done late on due date or next day after. A simple “hi I’m just reaching out to confirm if you will be attending our wedding because we need to provide an accurate headcount to the caterer.” will do just fine.

LOLOL Sorry, I totally get the urge to be snarky!!! Of course I have a long ways to go yet, but most of our guests will be coming from out-of-state. *My* snarky urge would be to say "If you don't know if you're coming by now you are a bigger procrastinator than I thought!" Good luck holding back the "snarks" - hope you are able to reach all these late people.

I was shocked at how many guests did not RSVP. I wanted to say, “ Hey Deadbeat, are you coming?!”
Most of them forgot or lost the pre posted card.
They all showed up in the end.

I would reach out and politely say, " I haven't received you RSVP and it's now past the date, and I need to know today if you'll be attending". I wouldn't give them any more time to respond at that point if they don't firm it up then their not coming. I would even a day before the wedding call them to remind them they didn't respond and they can't attend. Simple as that. You are throwing them the party.

Like others have mentioned, individual calls/ texts/ emails/ carrier pigeons are the way to go. I know a lot of our guests are still waiting to get their invitations even though we mailed them weeks ago, so it wouldn't surprise me if their response cards take forever to get to us through the mail system or even ended up getting lost. Putting out a post not aimed at any specific person would probably fail to register with someone in that situation that assumed you already had their response.

My RSVP deadline passed last week and my fiancé and I have been texting people. I actually text them a link to my website with the message “Hi XYZ!! Just a reminder that our RSVP deadline was 9/12. Here’s a link to our website, if you could just go on real quick and select your meal choice we would appreciate it! Thanks so much and hope to see you there!”

View Quoted Comment

The carrier pigeons have proven most successful for me. But a few have not returned. lol.

I would suggest going the old school phone call route, after an attempt to contact them, you can put them as a "no" for catering purposes. I'd say something like "hi there, reminder to RSVP to the wedding invitation by tomorrow, otherwise we'll have to put you down as not attending. Thanks in advance!"

We plan to start calling people the day after the RSVP deadline. If they don't answer, we'll leave a voicemail and then send a text message.

"We are reaching out since yesterday was the RSVP deadline and we did not hear anything from you. Please let us know if you can make it to the wedding or not. No hard feelings either way. We just need to know!"

Anyone who we don't hear from by the venue's deadline for final headcount will not have a seat. Our RSVP deadline is a week before when the venue ACTUALLY needs the final headcount, so that will leave some buffer for the stragglers.