Online only, physical rsvp or both?

I've received several invitations that were a physical invite that directed you to RSVP online, which I felt was super convenient. In one instance, my parents were also invited and it appeared that they gave people in older generations the options to do online or snail mail, as they recieved as RSVP card to mail back in addition to the website link.

We're giving the option of phone or online. It saves the cost of postage for physical cards. Even our guests in their 80s and 90s use social media, so I figure snail mail isn't a necessity.

We gave the option for both. Let's hope that prompts more people to RSVP and less phone calls I have to make.

We technically did both online and snail mail, though we didn't advertise the online option (we just put our wedding website on the invite but didn't specify "RSVP here!" or anything). Definitely didn't have anyone change their online RSVP last minute, though did have a couple people think they RSVP'd online but must've missed clicking submit or something because we never saw their reply come in.

The posts discussing each on the forum are hit or miss depending on the crowd. Many are used to paper rsvps. Not everyone is tech savvy, even if they are younger. So there should not be one extreme or another with no middle ground. No matter what format you provide, you will have to track down some guests after the due date.


The posts who had the most success mentioned offering a variety of reply methods: in person, paper reply card, online rsvp such as rsvpify.com or Withjoy.com, text/phone call and email. Guests choose what works best for them without inconvenience of trying to navigate something they don’t understand.
We will be providing all options.

We had planned to do online only RSVPs. But now that you have pointed out guests may feel like they can just change it on a whim, I am seriously rethinking this plan! We may change it to snail mail RSVP only

We’re doing physical invites. My family is coming from overseas and all tech savvy so will happily do online but FH grandparents are not at all tech friendly so we’ll do regular mail for them. So that we don’t have to print two different RSVP cards we’re gonna do them double sided, on one side will be a QR code to our wedding website and on the other will be an old fashioned pen and paper response card. We’ll include envelopes for everyone and postage for the grandparents, if anyone else wants to mail they can but I doubt they will.

So, depending on your online RSVP, you can activate an deactivate the portal which means once your RSVP date comes you can close it for changes. I am using the knot and exclusively using online RSVPs, and that feature has been handy. The other way to think about it is this: if you elect to keep it open, and people DO last minute change their RSVP - that may help you to get that short notice heads up and you may be able to have less empty seats for no shows, let your caterer know they should prep less plates, etc

View Quoted Comment One thing you could do to prevent this is to hide the RSVP page on your website once you give the final count to the caterer! That way, they can't change their reply without reaching out to you.

View Quoted Comment Thanks Lisa I hadn’t thought of that! These are all great ideas, thank you everyone

Ultimately you can do whatever you want - it's your wedding! If you want to do some RSVPs online and some physical mailed RSVPs, its completely your choice. I've never heard of people trying to change their RSVP last-minute. I'm sure it's happened, I've just never heard of it. I'm doing all my RSVPs online. Most people know how online RSVPs work now, or know someone who can help them do it. The few who can't figure it out will just call you or your parents.

We did a physical invitation with a physical RSVP card (addressed and stamped back to us) along with a wedding website link to RSVP online. I think it worked really well for us. We had about 3/4 answer via mail and the 1/4 or so did an online RSVP.