Welcome to Issue 5 of my Wedding Invitation Guide.
A printed wedding response card enclosed with your wedding invitation is essential in your planning since it is used to determine how many guests are going to attend your wedding. An accurate count is vital for preparing enough food, seating arrangements and other accommodations so ordering response cards can actually save you money. A response card is sent with your guest's wedding invitation and returned by the date indicated on the card (usually 2-3 weeks before your wedding day). Today, another response card option is to have them printed allowing guests to select an entree as well as indicate if they will be attending your celebration.
A response envelope is included with each response card you order and should be printed with the address of whomever will be keeping track of the guest count. As a convenience for your guests, be sure to include a stamp on each envelope.
After mailing out my own wedding invitations, it was fun to always see whose response cards were returned and if they would be attending our wedding. For a few weeks, getting the mail was actually exciting since I knew there would be more than just junk mail and bills.
Be sure to keep your original guest list so you can mark off each guest's name as you receive their response card back. This will help you to know who didn't reply and who you may want to contact by phone to make sure they received your wedding invitation.
TIP
Be sure to also make a copy of your original guest list for using when recording your gifts and writing thank you notes. We will discuss this further in Issue 10 - "Thank You Notes".
TIP
To account for those guests who might forget to include their name on the response card, lightly mark a number on the upper corner or on the back of each card before mailing them with your invitations. Place that same corresponding # next to that guest's name on the original paper copy of your guest list. This process will also come in handy for any names that are not legibly written on their returned response card. When those types of cards are returned, just match the number on it to that corresponding number on your paper guest list.
An alternative to ordering wedding invitations and response cards with envelopes as separate items is ordering seal 'n send wedding invitations where the response card is attached to the invitation as one piece. Prices for this product include seals along with the return address printed on both the back flap when initially mailing the wedding invitation and on the perforated response postcard. Notice I mentioned postcard which means that the return postage you supply for your guests will be cheaper since postcard rates are cheaper than normal 1st class postage.
SAMPLE RESPONSE CARD WORDINGS
Please respond by DATE
M _____________________
__ We'd be delighted!
__ We regret to decline.
The favour of a reply is requested
on or before DATE
M ____________
Number of persons __
For many, many more samples of wedding invitation wording,
visit our Sample Verse area!
QUICK TURNAROUND
