Wedding Response Card Wording

Learn wording for wedding invitation response cards and use free reply card templates

Also see rehearsal dinner invitation wording, wedding program wording and wedding invitation wording

When starting to think about your wedding invitations, you mostly focus on the wedding invitation itself and the envelopes. But wait, you’re missing one of the most important parts of the wedding invitation – the wedding invitation reply cards. Response cards are an essential part of your wedding invitation mainly because they will let you know who is and isn’t coming to your wedding.

One of the biggest questions that brides have about these cards concerns wedding response card wording. What should your reply cards say and how should they say it? Can you include reception meal choices in wedding response card wording? How can you keep invited guests from bringing extra people to your wedding?

Read on and you’ll find the answers to these questions and everything else you need to know about wedding invitation reply cards. Below we go over topics from the do’s and don’ts of wedding response card wording to sample wedding response cards that you can copy and use for your wedding.

What Are Wedding Response Cards?

They are cards that ask guests to check a box to let you know how many people will be attending your wedding. Wedding invitation response cards and the corresponding return envelopes are typically included in your wedding invitation. When you purchase your wedding invitations, you can purchase response cards at the same time. If you’re making your invitations with your printer at home, get blank wedding response cards and envelopes from an online source or crafts store.

Why do I need wedding invitation reply cards?

For starters, you’ll need response cards to let you know how many guests to expect at your wedding. This information will be extremely valuable to you in your wedding planning because you’ll be able to make sure there are enough food and drinks, favors, table settings and places to sit for every guest who will attend your wedding.

Without a rough headcount, you could have shortages of food or table settings at your wedding and that could be a disaster. Also, having an idea of who will be attending will help your caterer and event planner do a better job of coordinating your wedding because they will have an adequate number of staff persons available to help.

Another reason why you want to use wedding reply cards is because you probably want to know who is coming and who isn’t coming. It would be a shame to be looking for your great aunt or favorite coworker at your wedding and not know that they weren’t going to show. With wedding response cards you get all of that information in advance, so you will know who you get to spend time with on your wedding day.

General Rules For Wedding Response Card Wording

If you’re worried about people bringing uninvited guests or you have a tight guest list, do address the invitation to the invited guests and specify their names in the wedding response card wording. For example, “Jerry Brooks will attend___ won’t attend___, Pamela Brooks will attend___ won’t attend___.”

This way, you’ll leave no question as to who’s been invited to your wedding and you’ll avoid sticky situations where your guests may bring young children or any other uninvited people to your wedding.

Do include a response date on in the wording on your reply cards. You need to not only let guests know that a response is requested, you need to let them know when a response is expected. Find out when you need a final headcount for your wedding and request a response a few weeks before that. You need to build in some buffer time for guests who may be late in responding.

If your caterer needs a more exact headcount for your reception meal options, do include a checkbox for the meal choices in your wedding response card wording. It’s easy to add a meal choice to the wording in your response cards. Just put a small line of print on the card that reads: “Menu Selection: Beef___ Chicken___ Vegetarian___ (or whatever your choices are) and people will check the box that applies.

Do pre-address and stamp the envelopes for your wedding invitations reply cards. Remember that you want to make it easy for guests to respond. Adding the extra steps of addressing the envelope, buying a stamp and sending off the response card will make it that much more difficult for some guests to get around to responding. While not responding at all would be rude on the guest’s part, making it difficult to respond would be rude on your part.

If you have multiple events that are part of your wedding, do include response information for those events in the wording for your wedding reply cards. You’d do the wording for this the same way that you do for meal selections. Simply have the event name printed on the card with a checkbox beside it. For example, “Post-Wedding Brunch will attend___ won’t attend___.”

Do allow guests to write in congratulations or an explanation of why they can’t come to your wedding. If you have room on your wedding reply card, add a few blank lines for guests to write in comments or well wishes. This also makes it more fun for you to open response cards when they arrive in the mail.

Free Wedding Reply Card Templates

If you’re still at a loss on the wording for wedding response cards, we’ll make it even easier for you. Below are a few free wedding reply card templates that you can use. Just copy the wording to use on your reply cards and you’re done.

Please respond on or before

(R.S.V.P date)

(Guest Name) will attend___ will not attend___

The favor of a reply is requested on or before

(R.S.V.P date)

(Guest Name) will attend___ will not attend___

Additional Wedding Events

Rehearsal dinner: will attend___ will not attend___

Post-wedding luncheon: will attend___ will not attend___

The courtesy of a reply is requested by

(R.S.V.P. date)

(Guest Name) accept___ decline___

Menu Selection (please indicate number of each):

Beef___ Chicken___ Fish___