Greetings ladies! My FH and I had a discussion about our RSVPs last night, and we respectfully disagreed with one another. Our RSVP Deadline, and hotel block cutoff date is March 8, 2020 - Next Sunday! We have received 109 accepted RSVPs and 33 declined RSVPs so far. We still have 106 unanswered RSVPs. (NOTE: We sent RSVP cards that say for people to send us a text message or go directly to our wedding website to accept or decline the invite)
So, last night FH made a comment to me along the lines of if people don't RSVP by the 8th they automatically aren't included in our final headcount, no questions asked. I was like, but... you can't just "un-invite" someone because they missed the deadline. Life happens, people forget to write things on their calendar, you know all the regular things! He disagreed with me, his argument was, we set that date for our convenience and because we have vendors that will require it. Yes, that is true, but we don't need to have a headcount to our caterer until April 11th. I purposely set up the RSVP date as March 8th to give us a buffer zone. Anyhow, we finally came to the resolution that we should send individual messages/emails/phone calls to everyone we haven't heard from by the 7th as a "friendly reminder", and hope they reply by the next day.
What is everyone's thoughts on this? Am I being "too lenient"? Is my FH right on this? I totally get that we need that final headcount for seating and catering purposes, but I can't fathom telling a friend or family member, say they reply on the 13th, "Sorry, you missed the RSVP date, we don't have a seat for you".
ALSO: The hotel block that I mentioned, we have 60 rooms reserved exclusively for our wedding at our discounted rate. AFTER the 8th of March, any un-booked rooms are released back to the public, however anyone who calls to book after that can still get the rate, only if they still have rooms. Our is locked in for our wedding regardless, but there is a chance that the rooms will not be available after March 8th. (Any tips on urging people to take advantage of this? Aside from my bridesmaids, mom, aunt and 2 family friends, not a single other person has booked a room!)
NOTE: Our wedding is not technically a "destination wedding", because FH and I live 5 minutes from the venue, and we have several local friends attending, but about 65% of our guests are out of state or at least 2.5 hours away. That is why we reserved so many hotel rooms.
