The respond card, or RSVP, is a handy card to have when you need to have an accurate count of how many people will be attending your wedding and reception. The card should contain the following information:

1. An opening line. Example: "Please respond on or before..." or "Kindly respond on or before..."
2. The date you need them to respond by (usually 2-3 weeks before the wedding date)
3. A line for your guests to fill out their names. Example: M__________ or Name___________
4. One or two lines for them to indicate their intentions:
   "Number attending___
     Sorry, unable to attend___"

If you are having entree choices at the reception, you should include that information on the respond card. In lieu of step 4 above, you can list the entree choices and ask the guest to indicate the number of each entree. This not only lets you know that the guest wishes to eat, but gives you the total amount of people coming. For example, when inviting Mr. and Mrs. Smith and their child, you might get back a respond card similar to this:

Kindly respond by May 1, 2009
M r. John and Sally Smith & Johnny  
Number of entrees:
 1 Beef     2 Chicken    __Vegetarian
Sorry, unable to attend___


If only 1 Beef and 1 Chicken were indicated, then you would know ahead of time that only 2 of the 3 people invited plan on attending.

To make it convenient for your guests, make sure to provide a pre-addressed envelope in which to return their respond card in. When ordering your wedding invitations from a printing company, most include the printing of the response envelope in the cost of the respond cards. But what address should you use? Traditionally, it should be the address of the person in charge of the guest list. This could be the bride, the maid of honor, or even a wedding planner.

A wedding invitation is always a welcome site in the mailbox. However, if proper wedding invitation etiquette is not followed, problems can arise. When sending out wedding invitations, take extra care to not confuse or possibly insult your guests. Following proper wedding invitation etiquette and protocol is crucial to not giving anyone the wrong impression. Although you may not be to meet everyone's expectations, by following proper wedding invitation etiquette, you can lower your chances of insulting a potential guest. Adhering to generally accepted guidelines to deal with sensitive invitation issues, such as not inviting children, can make the whole process leading up to the wedding run much smoother.

A major area of wedding invitation etiquette comes in the form of return envelopes. It is generally considered unacceptable to not pay for return postage. Not only is it a nice gesture to your guest to include postage; it also serves to help ensure a quick response. If you give your invitee a stamped and addressed return envelope, it makes the likelihood of a response much higher. Indeed, invitations that do not include a properly equipped return envelope are often shoved at the bottom of a pile of mail to be sent out, and eventually forgotten. If your budget can not handle the cost of postage for your entire guest list, then use return post cards. The fee is smaller with post cards, and there is no social slight in using them instead of an envelope.

One other such instance where confusion can occur is when the guest has not R.S.V.P.'d in time. If you receive no reply to your invitation by the date specified, you should wait about a week before taking action. If you are confident enough, you can then call the guests. The best way to bring up the issue is to ask if they have received the invitation. For the most part, people usually have received the invitation and just forgotten about it under the stack of other things they have to get done. If, by some chance, they never received the invitation, you should confirm that you have the correct address and take necessary action from there. If you are uncomfortable with calling, then just assume that the guest is attending. It is always better to have space for your guest should he or she attend, than be unprepared if he or she shows up and were not accounted for.

Overall, it is pretty easy to ensure that you do not offend any of your guests. Just take the necessary precautions, and you should have no trouble. Take care of sending the respond cards and then relax and wait for the responses to arrive.