What Questions to Ask on Wedding RSVP
Twenty questions worth putting on a wedding RSVP card or reply page, from attendance and meal choice to allergies, shuttle seats, and how a guest's name should be printed. Written for couples deciding what to ask and what to leave off.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Will you be joining us?
Why ask it
The one line the card cannot skip, and the phrasing matters. Print a name line above the yes and no boxes, because a card returned with a tick and no writing tells you somebody is coming and not who. Give a no option that does not ask for a reason.
Please write the full name of everyone in your party who is attending.
Why ask it
Never accept a number on its own. Guests routinely add a partner or a child who was not invited, and a written name is far easier to correct now than at the door on the day. Printing the invited names on the card and leaving one line per person produces the fewest awkward phone calls.
Which events will you be attending?
Why ask it
Only include this when the events genuinely differ: a ceremony with a shorter guest list, a separate welcome dinner, a daytime and evening split. Where events differ and the card does not ask, you get people arriving for a meal nobody counted, or missing a ceremony they were invited to.
Please choose a main course for each guest.
Why ask it
Ask per person, not per household, or you will spend the week before the deadline reconciling four names against two chicken selections. List a vegetarian option as a choice rather than as an accommodation. Caterers usually want these numbers well before the wedding, so set your deadline against theirs and not the other way round.
Does anyone in your party have a food allergy or dietary restriction we should pass to the caterer?
Why ask it
The one question with a safety consequence, so keep it separate from the meal choice and give it a blank line rather than a tick box. A severe allergy needs to reach the kitchen, not just the seating chart. Ask how severe it is, since avoiding cross-contamination is a different instruction from accommodating a preference.
Are children attending, and what are their ages?
Why ask it
Ages, not just a count. A caterer prices a three-year-old differently from a fifteen-year-old, and the venue may need highchairs, a quiet room, or a different plan for the ceremony. If children are not invited, leave this question off entirely and say so on the invitation, which is where that belongs.
Will anyone need a children's meal or a highchair?
Why ask it
A practical detail your venue will ask you for and you will otherwise be guessing at. Highchair counts, children's portions, and whether a family wants a table near the door all come from this single line. Omit it and it becomes a stack of last-minute messages during the week you have the least time.
Does anyone in your party need step-free access, a particular seat, or other assistance?
Why ask it
Word it neutrally and leave a blank line instead of checkboxes, so people can name what they actually need: a chair rather than a pew, shade, a route without steps, a seat away from the speakers, room for a wheelchair. Most guests will not raise any of this unless the card invites them to.
What is the best email address and mobile number to reach you on the day?
Why ask it
The mobile number is the part that matters. A weather change, a shuttle delay, or a moved ceremony time has to reach people within the hour, and neither post nor email will do it. Collect it even from guests you think you already have, since numbers change and your address list is probably several years old.
Are you traveling from out of town, and which nights will you be here?
Why ask it
Arrival and departure dates let you place welcome bags, work out who needs collecting from a station, and see the gaps in the weekend. It also quietly shows who is making a trip of it, which decides whether the night before involves six people or forty and how many meals you are effectively hosting.
Are you planning to book a room in our hotel block?
Why ask it
Room blocks carry a release date, and unbooked rooms either lapse or become your financial liability depending on what you signed. Asking on the card tells you which guests are sorted and lets you release rooms before you owe money on them. Print the hotel booking deadline right beside the question.
Will you need a seat on the shuttle, and in which direction?
Why ask it
Direction matters more than people expect: many guests drive out and want a ride home. The split decides whether one vehicle running twice is enough or you need two. Guests who leave this blank usually intend to drive themselves, which leads straight into the parking question.
Will you be driving, and do you need to leave a car overnight?
Why ask it
Venues differ on overnight parking, and guests who plan to drink need to know before they decide how to travel. The point of asking is to prompt the planning. If your venue does not allow cars to stay, print that on the card rather than letting people discover it at midnight.
Will you join us for welcome drinks the night before?
Why ask it
Only ask if the event is genuinely open to everyone invited, and be explicit about who that includes. An extra gathering is real money and a headcount you cannot get any other way. Asking on the main card also signals that arriving a day early is normal, which tends to raise the number.
Will you be able to stay for brunch the morning after?
Why ask it
This has the widest gap between invited and attending, because people book early flights and then sleep in. Expect the number to fall again after you collect it, so choose a format that tolerates the drift: something you can scale on the morning rather than a plated meal you have to guarantee in advance.
Is there anyone you would particularly like to be seated near?
Why ask it
Two useful kinds of answer come back: the friend a guest arrived with, and occasionally a name they would rather be seated away from. Keep the line short so it does not read as an invitation to redesign the whole room, and treat what you get as a preference rather than a commitment.
What song will get you onto the dance floor?
Why ask it
A pleasant question that also does real work, since a DJ or band working from guest requests fills a floor better than a playlist built by two people. Expect blanks and a few unplayable suggestions. Pass the list to whoever runs the music and do not promise anyone that their song will be played.
Is there anything else we should know to make the day easier for you?
Why ask it
The open line is where the useful surprises appear: a guest who is newly pregnant, a parent who cannot sit through a long ceremony, someone who no longer drinks, a name that has changed. Keep it optional and small, and read every reply, because this is the field people use when something genuinely matters.
Have we spelled your name the way you would like it printed?
Why ask it
Names go onto escort cards, place cards, and the seating chart, and a misspelling is one of the few wedding errors guests notice and remember. This line also catches new surnames, preferred names, and titles, and it costs one printed row to avoid a correction on the morning of the wedding.
Will you tell us if your plans change after you reply?
Why ask it
Print the deadline as a date rather than a phrase, and add this line beside it. Caterers usually need a final count in the last few days, and a guest who quietly stops intending to come still costs you a meal, a chair, and a place setting unless they say something. Naming one person to contact makes it likelier they will.
How to build the reply card
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Build the shortest card that works
Paper holds about five questions
A reply card is roughly the size of a postcard and every question you add lowers the completion rate and raises the number you have to chase. Attendance, names, meal choice, allergies, and a contact number are the five that most weddings genuinely need on paper. Everything else belongs on a website or in a follow-up email.
Put the long list online
A reply page can ask about shuttles, hotel nights, welcome drinks, brunch, songs, and seating preferences without feeling like a form, because it reveals questions one at a time. It also gives you the answers as a spreadsheet instead of a shoebox of cards in three different handwritings.
Offer both, and expect a split
Some guests will not reply online and some will never post a card. Printing a web address on the card and accepting either is less work than converting anyone. Whichever route they take, record it in one place the same day it arrives.
Wording that produces clean answers
- 1Print the invited names on the card. It settles the plus-one question without a conversation.
- 2Use one line per guest for meals rather than a tally, so you can match a name to a plate.
- 3Give allergies a blank line, not a checkbox, and ask how serious it is.
- 4Write the reply-by date as a full date, including the year, and repeat it on the envelope.
- 5Stamp and address the return envelope. Response rates rise noticeably when guests do not have to find a stamp.
- 6Number the back of each card faintly and keep a matching list, so an unsigned card can still be identified.
Timing
- Work backwards from your caterer's final-count deadline, not from the wedding date. Set the guest deadline two to three weeks earlier so you have room to chase.
- Expect to follow up with a good number of guests personally, by phone or text. Silence usually means the card is on someone's fridge, not that they are not coming.
- Do not send group messages asking people to reply. Individual notes work and public reminders mostly irritate the people who already answered.
- Close the hotel block and the shuttle count before the meal count, since both have their own earlier deadlines.
What to leave off
- Anything about gifts or a registry. It belongs on the website, never on the reply card.
- A request for guests to explain why they cannot attend.
- Questions about how each guest knows the couple. You already know, and it reads oddly to the person filling it in.
- Requests for a postal address you already have, unless you actually need it for a thank-you list.
- A children's policy phrased as a question. State it on the invitation instead so there is nothing to negotiate.
- Anything you will not act on. Asking about a preference and then ignoring it is worse than never asking.