An RSVP card has one job: turn a guest’s intention into a number you can give a caterer. Most of them ask a yes-or-no question and then need a phone call to work out what the answer meant - how many people, which events, whether the partner is coming, what they eat.
The four lines that do the work
- A reply-by date. An actual date, not “soon”. It is the only line with a deadline in it, so it is the one people act on.
- Yes or no. Two options, clearly separated. Do not make declining feel like a form.
- How many. The number of seats you are offering, so the guest confirms against it rather than guessing.
- How to send it back. One route, not three. Guests given a choice of channels will invent a fourth.
Examples
Formal
The favour of a reply is requested
by the first of May
M ________________________
____ accepts with pleasure
____ declines with regret
The M line is a title stub - Mr, Mrs, Ms, Miss - that the guest completes with their own name. It is traditional, and it is also the line guests most often fill in wrongly. If you are not committed to the convention, “Name(s)” does the same job.
Modern
Please reply by 1 May
Name(s): ________________________
____ Joyfully accepts
____ Regretfully declines
Number attending: ____ of 2 reserved
Casual
Let us know by 1 May
Who: ____________________
Coming? Yes / No
How many of you: ____
Anything we should know about food: ____________
With meal choices
Please reply by 1 May
Name(s): ________________________
____ Accepts ____ Declines
Number attending: ____ of 2 reserved
Please indicate your choice:
____ Chicken ____ Fish ____ Vegetarian
Options the guest ticks, not a box they write in. A tick is countable; a sentence has to be read and interpreted, and forty of them is an evening’s work.
The three questions people are too polite to ask directly
Are children invited?
Do not write a policy. Write the number of seats. “We have reserved 2 seats for you” answers it completely, without anyone having to read a sentence about children and decide whether it applies to theirs. It is also the version that does not sound like a rule.
Do I get a plus-one?
Same answer, same mechanism. If you know the partner’s name, use it - addressing the invitation to both people is warmer than any seat count. If you do not, the number does the work. What does not work is leaving it unsaid, because an unanswered question gets answered optimistically. There is more on setting those numbers in the guide to seats per invitation.
Which parts am I invited to?
If your day has several events, a single yes is three guesses. Ask per event, and only show a guest the events they are actually invited to - otherwise you are asking them to decline something they were never offered. That is awkward on a card and straightforward on a page.
What goes wrong
- No date. The most common and the most costly. “Soon” is not a deadline; pick the date by working back from your caterer.
- Asking for a headcount without giving one. “Number attending: ____” with no reserved figure invites a guest to decide how many of them are coming.
- Open text where a tick would do. Every free-text field is a thing you will have to read, interpret and total.
- More than one way to reply. A card, an email address and a phone number means replies in three places and a fourth arriving through your mother.
- Burying the deadline. It should be the first line, or the largest. It is the only part with a consequence.
- No way to decline gracefully. If declining is harder than accepting, people do neither.
When the card is a page
Everything above is written for a card, because that is where these conventions come from. The wording barely changes when the reply happens on a page - you still need a date, a clear yes and no, a seat count and one route back - but two of the problems stop being wording problems.
The seat count can be enforced rather than requested, so a guest offered two cannot confirm four. And because every guest has their own link, the reply arrives attached to a name instead of as a card you have to match to a household. What that leaves you writing is the part that was always the interesting bit: the tone.
Frequently asked questions
What should an RSVP card say?
Four things: a reply-by date, a way to say yes or no, a way to say how many people are coming, and the way to send it back. Anything else is optional, and every optional line costs you a few replies.
What does the M___ line mean?
It is the start of a title - Mr, Mrs, Ms, Miss - for the guest to complete with their own name. It is a formal convention and it confuses a lot of people. "Name(s)" does the same job with none of the ambiguity.
How do we ask for a meal choice politely?
List the options and let the guest tick, rather than asking them to describe what they want. "Please indicate your choice: chicken / fish / vegetarian" gets you countable answers; "any dietary requirements?" gets you sentences you have to interpret.
How do we make clear that children are not invited?
Say the number of seats rather than the rule. "We have reserved 2 seats for you" answers the question without anyone having to read a policy about children, and it is far easier to write than a polite version of "no kids".
How do we word a plus-one, or the absence of one?
The same way - through the seat count. Naming a partner if you know them ("Sarah and Daniel") is warmer still. What does not work is silence, because silence is read as permission.
Should we give a reply-by date or just say soon?
Always a date. "Please reply soon" is not a deadline and does not appear in anyone's calendar. Pick the date by working back from your caterer's final-numbers day.
Related: Invitation wording · Setting the deadline · Choosing your questions · Seats per invitation · Per-event replies