No One Has Rsvped

You have just hit on one of my all time huge pet peeves. I find that less and less parents will RSVP for parties. I hate that. Every party we've ever had, guests attended who never let us know they were attending. I'm willing to bet that you will have guests. Best of luck!

UGH! I don't know why this practice has gone by the way side in years past! So annoying to have to wonder, because people are too lazy to take one min to RSVP! With all the ways to communicate these days it should be a non-issue! I had problems with both of my girls b days this year. I even said they could respond by text! Come on people! Show a little consideration!

Tell your daughter to start asking her friends if they are coming, and have her tell them to remind their parents to call.

I can't ever get anyone to respond either. To the extent that for the last invite I sent out, I said "due to the nature of the party, if you don't RSVP by the deadline, your child can't come".

I am sick of non-RSVP'ers.....

Please, please do not ask the teacher to do anything else! She already organized 20+ invitations so that they are in the front of the folder. She has to do this for the other 20 kids when their parents decide to send out party invites, holiday party programs, and so on. Asking the schools to send out follow-ups is just unfair. I know you think it will only take a few minutes to email everyone, but teachers are already overburdened with the children's education, lesson plans, supply needs, kids with allergies and diseases and special needs, and parents complaining about real stuff and stupid stuff. So they really cannot function as the parents' social connection.

You've invited a whole bunch of kids you don't know, and their families don't know you - so you don't have contact info for each other. That's a huge problem. I absolutely agree that people are RUDE and do not RSVP, and I hate that, believe me! But by inviting the whole class, you may have inadvertently conveyed the illusion that it's a big huge party and one less RSVP doesn't matter. And every family thinks they are the only one that hasn't replied!

I would start with the parents you DO know, and mention that you are a little unsure of how to proceed since you haven't heard from 15 families, and do they have contact info for any of them. If your daughter's class has a room parent, ask her. If there is a school directory from last year, ask another parent or a rep from the parent-teacher organization. This is what volunteers are for.

Otherwise just order goody bag items from a local store, save the receipt, and take back what you cannot use. In our neighborhood, we have a lot of parents concerned about obesity and diabetes, and we often give out goodies for Halloween instead of candy. I've got a bunch of slap bracelets, erasers, spider rings, pencils, etc. in Halloween themes. Since your party is right before Halloween, maybe you could get some Halloween things, and then give out any leftovers to trick or treaters instead of candy their parents are going to throw out. So no money would be wasted.

Oh my. There are RSVP questions on this site almost all the time.

You could always ask at the school if you might have the families' phone numbers for this purpose. I don't know what the answer would be, but it wouldn't hurt to ask. Go ahead and use the notes; I hope the parents will get them. As a kid I was awful about taking notes home when I was supposed to. It was a wonder my mother let me live to grow up.

Please be aware that *many* people RSVP at the very, very last minute (if at all). Your situation illustrates one reason why replies should be made early instead.

Just in case, do you have a Plan B - perhaps going to some very special place as a family in case the party doesn't happen?

There's still time for people to RSVP. Many people wait until the day or two before to RSVP in spite of what you put on the invitation. I wouldn't count on the school giving you the parent's phone numbers at all due to privacy laws. At Valentine's Day you might get a student list, but the teachers won't give out home or cell phone numbers.

Just have a Plan B ready for the party day. If only a couple of children RSVP, plan for those children and a few extra. I've had only a couple of people RSVP yes and then had people who didn't RSVP at all show up. I've also had people who initially RSVP'd "no" end up calling me last minute and showing up. If no one shows up, have Plan C ready. You can't really avoid hurt feelings but you can plan a fun day in case the party falls through.

I think Sherri had the best idea. Have your daughter ask the kids at school, and tell them to tell their parents to call! Usually when a parents knows that their kid has heard about a party, they are more apt to let them attend. I have been on the fence before about some parties because there are so many. We're constantly getting party invites. If my kids really want to go, I usually let them.

It's pretty common now for people to not rsvp. It drives me crazy. I've had only one big, kid party. It was when my daughter turned 7 and it was for her golden birthday. I invited the whole class, plus some family and friends. Of her class, only 25% rsvp'd. It was at a super fun venue, and I wrongly assumed everyone would come..I ended up paying for about 10 spaces that didn't get filled. I learned my lesson, and now only have small parties with 3-4 of their closest friends. It's not worth the money, stress and disappointment.

Can you ask the teacher to send a short email to the parents on your behalf? I would also call any friends of yours with a couple of kids to see if they might come, too, to round things out.

Sorry, no suggestions but you're not alone. No one seems to RSVP anymore. :( And when they do, as others have stated, it's often at the last minute. I have put cut off dates for RSVP'ing on invitations (and I've stated that I need to know by this day so I can order the cake, food, etc.) and that day will come and go and still no RSVP's. I have found that people will only RSVP if coming to the party but they sometimes don't RSVP until the day before. And they sometimes will say they are coming and then not even show up.

A lot of parents don't even look at the take home folder. You need to get a student directory and call everyone. Even our school has them. They are super cautious about privacy too. They send home a sheet at the first of the year and parents can check the yes or the no box for their number to be included or not.

Talk to the teacher too. She may have a list of names she can give you. I wouldn't expect to have any rsvp's until today or tomorrow though. They may not have even seen the invitations yet.

Daughter could just ask the kids for their phone numbers too.

How about inviting some of her friends who are not from school? Or your friends who have kids your daughter's age?
As for school friends, can you ask your daughter invite her friends herself? You don't say how old she is. if she is older she will be very disappointed if nobody shows up.

So your school doesn't publish a school directory? Are you sure? If so, there may be one coming but not in print for this year just yet (they can take until late Oct.-early Nov. to compile). This is a good example of why school directories, sent to all families, are a huge help at times like this; if your school does not do one, consider volunteering to lead the project to do one next year and in years to come. (Parents can of course opt out of having their information or their child's in any directory that is given out to parents at school, but at our school, most everyone participates.) And yes, ours is a public school too - there is nothing to stop public schools from doing directories.

If there's no directory, the best you can do is another note, but as someone else posted, many folks will not RSVP until a few days before an event (if at all). I know that some parents are now so attuned to invitations via e-mail or on sites like "Sign Up Genius" that they pay zero attention to paper invitations. Many parents also don't really look at anything in the weekly folders that come home with their kids, frankly, so I would bet that the parents of many of the kids simply never noticed the invitation.

Give your teacher a huge thank you (even a thank-you note) for putting those invitations in the folders to begin with; many, many schools and/or individual teachers completely prohibit using the weekly take home folders for anything other than materials from the school. I'm actually kind of surprised the teacher would do this for you, so give her an extra thanks.

I absolutely HATE this. I never had this problem much until my triplets birthday party on the 6th. They are in 3 separate classes so I allowed them to invite 4 friends each for their bowling party. They each had their own lane with 5 max people, hence 4 guests each. My daughter had all but one respond right away. The 4th took longer because of confusion on their proper email address. (I had to use last year's school directory to contact since the entire classes weren't invited) One son had all 4 boys respond right away. My other son got no replies. Nothing. I sent the original "evites" 2 weeks before the party. Then a reminder to those who didn't repond one week before. And then another reminder 3 days before! Towards the end I finally got parents saying their boys had baseball or football games. Um, they had the schedule. They should have told me right away. I finally got one parent call the night before the party saying her son could come. So my one son had one guest come. So I put my 4 year old granddaughter on his lane along with my 17 year old son. They all had a blast but the process should not be this difficult.

If the teacher is fine with passing out the invited and reminders then by all means do it! I had to have my kids talk to the kids who were invited and they reminded the kids daily to bug their parents to email or call me! Gotta do what ya gotta do!

I have two older boys, 17 and 25. In all the years that all 5 of my kids have been invited to parties I think I forgot to RSVP right away once.

K. B
mom to 5 including triplets

Did your invitations include a date to RSVP BY? If not, many parents will wait until 2-3 days before the party. Some won't bother to RSVP at all, regardless of whether they are planning to attend or not.

I would definitely ask the teacher if there is any way for you to get contact info so you can follow up about the invitation (you never know) but be prepared that the school cannot release that information due to privacy issues.

You might see if the teacher would be willing to forward an email from you to the students' parents, if you word it extremely nicely, as perhaps just a "reminder to RSVP" or something.
Good luck.

The teacher or school office should have contact info for the parents. It couldn't hurt to explain the situation and ask if they can share it with you. I don't think the follow-up note is a bad idea either.

A friend of mine was in the same boat recently and emailed all the parents to check on RSVPs since she had almost none. It turned out that most had never even gotten the invitation and were glad to know about the party so they could put it on the calendar. She had a great turnout.

You won't get a 100% response no matter what you do -- some people just can't seem to get it together when it comes to RSVP-ing -- but you will be a lot closer than you are.

Also, be prepared for some people not to bother with a response and show up at the party anyway. I had this happen when my son turned 4. At least 12 people I was not expecting came. I barely had enough cake! It's rude, but it is, unfortunately, very common.

maybe the teacher could pass around a sign-up sheet? Back in the day-we often used the term "Regrets Only" so that invitees need only respond if they weren't able to attend. Good luck!

We have a big party every year for our girls (they are 8 and 5 now), and we invite all of their friends. Soccer team, girl scout troop, classmates, etc. Practically no one RSVPs, and when they do, it's the morning of the party. It's just something you have to kind of wing it for... I buy enough goody bags to cover all the kids I invited.

It doesn't bother me that people don't really RSVP. I often don't know if I'll be able to make it to something until the day before either. We've got lots of extra-curriculars to deal with, my husband and I both work full time, we're busy people. I do try to let them know if I intend to go, and then I can always cancel if something changes.

Did you send the invites home through the backpack express? We have missed several parties because the birthday child distributed the invites at school and they never came home. And I always check the backpack, but not all parents do. You might send out a follow-up, but involve the teacher to make sure the notices make it home. Find out if she has contact info for the class that you can use.