When do people RSVP?

Probably gonna wait until the last minute since your date is so far out.

ETA I, for example, don't typically know my plans for a weekend FIVE MONTHS in advance.

It is way too early. I can't tell you what my plans are for March!!

In your case, people will wait until it gets closer, lose the invite, and not respond at all.

They tend to RSVP closer to the date when they have a better idea of their schedule. You went too crazy sending them this early. If you have allot of OOT guests then STDs would have been a better bet so meh could plan appropriately.

I would probably wait to RSVP until closer to your date if I had received an invite already... when did you make your deadline?

We sent ours out early since most of my friends and family basically have their years planned out. My friends rsvp'ed right away. A good chunk of my family never did so I had to call them a week after our cut off date.

I wouldn't be sending back my RSVP until way closer to your date, probably as close as I could to your deadline. March is pretty far away, and I'd need to get my ducks in a row. Also, if it actually is on a Wednesday, I'd need to get time off of work, which could easily take some time to get approved..

Most people won't know if they'll be able to take time off of work (if they need it) or need time to figure out travel arrangements. Invitations usually go out within 6-8 weeks of the wedding, and people usually respond within 3 weeks of receiving. You will probably not receive responses for a while, and having sent out so early, you may have to follow up with a number of people as the date gets closer.

I have the RSVPs due in mid-January. I sent the save the dates out in August. Between there being so many out of town guests and the wedding being on a Wednesday, I just thought it was better to give everyone more notice than less. And based on some comments I got after the invites went out, people clearly didn't check the day of the week when they got the save the dates.

I think maybe you sent them to early. I sent ours out in midseptember & we started receiving them right away with the exception of a few.

Your wedding is on a Wednesday and most of the guests are OOT? Sorry to burst your bubble, but I don't think a lot of them are going to come. I wouldn't travel for a Wednesday wedding unless you were immediate family, and even then I might side-eye it.

How OOT are they? I had people fly cross country for my wedding but we did a Friday wedding. Honestly, by March my life is going to be vastly different so I couldn't imagine RSVPing until late January at the earliest.

Between nursing school and work I wouldn't yet know if I could make it. Even your RSVP deadline is pretty early and I'd probably have to decline just because I wouldn't be sure. Why is your deadline in January? Mine was 3 weeks before my wedding. I chose it by knowing that my cake baker was the vendor who needed a final count before any of my other vendors and then gave myself a few days leeway to call people I hadn't heard from.

You'll need to plan to have time to call your guests and follow up because I strongly suspect you'll have a lot of people not send in their RSVPs.

I'm clearly the UO here, but I generally know whether or not I'll be attending someone's wedding as soon as I get an invitation. If I want to go to someone's wedding, I make it a priority to attend. If your guests are flying from out of town, then they would definitely know whether the are attending your wedding. They'd have to make the travel arrangements.

To answer your question: prior to wedding planning, I wasn't the best about sending RSVPs back as soon as I got the invitation, especially if I wasn't attending. Now, I do my best to send responses as soon as I've made my decision.

I think people will reply closer to your wedding date. After the holidays, people start to think about their vacation days and plans for the next year.

You may have a lot of people who forget to RSVP though. That shouldn't be a huge problem, you just need to follow up with people after your RSVP deadline passes.

Yeah, I'd guess a good portion of them don't know if they'll be able to come and probably won't know until January. Sending invites early would be sending them 9-10 weeks out, not 5 months, so I think you're going to need to be prepared to make a lot of phone calls to follow up- many people may lose the invite by the time they know if they can attend.

Lurkers, this is why you don't send your invites out too early.

The earliest you should have sent your invites was 12 weeks out. You're not getting RSVPs because people are WTF? I don't know what I'm doing in a week never mind 6 months from now.

Also regardless of when you sent them out, if their due date isn't until mid January, you can't reasonably expect responses BEFORE mid January

You sent them too early. An STD would have been sufficient

I got a few responses right away, they trickled in for a couple weeks, then I got a lot the week after the deadline date. Most people did wait until the last minute. I didn't have to make too many follow ups with non-responders, at least.

I sent mine out at a normal time (Oct 2nd, which is 8 weeks out), and I've gotten 97 accepts & 7 declines as of today/right now

edit: Out of 240 invited

edit2: If you sent STDs, there was no reason for you to send invitations so early.