How to Find Out if People Are Coming to a Rehearsal Dinner
The wedding rehearsal gives the bridal party an opportunity to go through its duties for the wedding itself and to become familiar with the venue. Afterward, the group, including the few guests and family members who were invited to the rehearsal, typically retire to have a relaxing dinner before the hectic proceedings of the wedding day. However, it can be frustrating to not know who is attending the rehearsal dinner and who is not. This issue can be solved with a bit of advanced preparation.
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Instructions
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Postal Responses
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Create a list of all the rehearsal dinner guests. This list should contain your guests' contact information as well. Leave a space next to each name so that you can make a note regarding whether or not the invitation has been accepted.
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Mail out your invitations. This should be done approximately four weeks before the event. Make sure, however, that you send these invitations out after the wedding invitations have been sent. Include a self-addressed stamped envelope and a response card in each invitation; this will make it easy for your guests to complete their RSVP acknowledgments.
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Record the responses from each guest as their response cards are returned to you.
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Call the guests who have not mailed you their response cards or told you of their plans. Allow a week or so to elapse before making contact via phone. When you do call, simply let your prospective guests know that you are trying to finalize your reservations for the event.
Electronic Responses
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Reduce your wedding's ecological impact by including your email as the RSVP address, rather than asking your guests to mail response cards back to you. This will give you a free and instant answer as soon as your guests send their emails, allowing you to finalize your rehearsal dinner's numbers as soon as possible. You can minimize your paper consumption further by sending out the invitations themselves by email. Indeed, electronic invitations are a viable alternative to conventional posted invitations. This method will save you both money and time.
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Refer back to your guest list after you have sent out the invitations. If there are any prospective guests who have not responded to you by replying to your message, email them once more just to check on them. Do this about a week after the initial round of invitations has been sent. Some rehearsal dinner guests may need a bit of encouragement, particularly if they do not use their email accounts often.
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Create a wedding website as an alternative to sending emailed invitations. Through these services, you can issue invitations to members of the group. Some even feature an RSVP application. This allows guests to post their responses and gives you the ability to track numbers. As these services keep track of who is responding, you will also be able to discern who has not yet made their intentions known.
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Tips & Warnings
The guest list may be a small figure, consisting only of those directly involved in the wedding ceremony itself. However, you may also want to invite out-of-town guests to make the event larger.
References
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