Please RSVP

The advancements in technology over the years has drastically altered the communication methods available for us, and in return, has affected event coordination particularly in regards to invitations.

Growing up, invites consisted of the pack of eight pre-made cards with the words ‘who, what, when, where and why’ printed on the invite and that tedious lines to fill in the information by hand on each one. There was also the critical RSVP line which almost always contained a telephone number. The invites were mailed out to the potential guests, the guests called to RSVP, and the planning continued. Now the formal mail invite is rarely used and has pretty much gone away along with the printed address book.

Event coordinators now have the option to mail invites, send an e-mail invite, text their guests, call their guests, create a Facebook event, create a web page, etc. The methods to invite and RSVP are numerous.

While technology has given event coordinators more options for managing their guest list, it also created obstacles. People are now inundated with invites and messages on a daily basis and coordinators now have to weed through the noise to get their invitation noticed. One of the difficulties in weeding through the noise is knowing what medium is considered most critical for each individual guest. Some guests might take the most notice to a printed and mailed invite since it is so rare anymore; whereas, others are e-mail fanatics and are most likely to respond to an email invite. These attention quirks are magnified the larger your guest list is. If you are having a small kids’ party for 10 people the customization is easy, but if you are planning a large party the customization is downright impossible.

When planning a large event, you need to do a thorough analysis of your guest list demographics to determine which medium is most appropriate to get the largest response (and of course, there is always the financial impact). No matter how you invite guests, you are always going to have ones that do not respond that you have to follow-up with, so always set aside time for that task. The most effective way to get the largest response is to submit your invite via multiple forms of communication. While this will get the greatest response, it also requires more work on the planner’s part. You then have to spend more time creating multiple invites, making sure all event details are consistent across all invites, and you have to be more structured in how you track RSVPs. If responses are coming via mail, phone, email, Facebook message, web registrations, etc., you have to create a centralized document to pull and track all of the responses.

Ultimately, the advancements in communication help promote your event but they are not without their added work.

Happy planning!