R.S.V.P.: Old-Fashioned or Timeless?

R.S.V.P. - we've all seen these four letters on wedding invitations, shower invitations, dinner invitations, etc., but do we really know, understand rather, what it means? I found the following on a website when Googling R.S.V.P. and thought it was a perfect explanation:

“R.S.V.P. is a French phrase, "répondez, s'il vous plaît," which means "please reply." The person sending the invitation would like you to tell him or her whether you accept or decline the invitation. That is, will you be coming to the event or not? Etiquette (defined as “the customary code of polite behavior in society or among members of a particular profession or group”) rules followed in most Western cultures require that if you receive a formal, written invitation, you should reply promptly, perhaps that same day. For hosts who are planning a dinner party, a wedding or a reception, this is important from a practical point of view, because they need to know how many people to count on and how much food and drink to buy. More important, though, is the simple courtesy of responding to someone who was nice enough to invite you, even if it is to say that you regret that you will not be able to attend.”

I plan events on a personal and professional level. Personally, I enjoy having parties, hosting showers, anything like that is fun to me. Professionally, my title is “Promotions & Events Coordinator” and I am in charge of the logistics and planning stages of U.S. Missions events. I like to think I’m good at this on both levels and often times receive compliments on how organized and detailed I am. (Not to toot my own horn, but I am very proud of the fact that I planned our wedding and NOTHING went wrong!)

I enjoy all aspects of the event planning stages, except for the common thread between personal and professional events:  the R.S.V.P.! In my experience, more people do not R.S.V.P. than do. The fact that people do not R.S.V.P. to events is such a struggle for me! Quite frankly, I find it rude. I've really tried to work on my feelings towards this lately and not get upset about it, but it is challenging! And I do try to see the big picture and realize that my event is not the #1 thing on the invitees list, but in reality, does it really take that long to reply?! :) Sometimes I wonder if it’s the thorn in my flesh that Paul refers to in 2 Corinthians 12:7, “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surprisingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.” Okay, so maybe that’s a stretch and taken out of context, but hopefully from that you can understand my great annoyance when I don’t receive R.S.V.P.s from people!

R.S.V.P.s are so important because it lets the host know how many to count on, how many places to prepare at a table, how many party favors to make, how much food to prepare, etc. For example, say you send out a shower invitation to 30 people and 10 R.S.V.P., so you plan on 10 people coming. You prepare enough of everything for 10 people, but the day of the shower 25 people show up! It is embarrassing not being prepared for the correct amount of people. Now I’m sure most people, as do I, prepare a party for more than the number of people who R.S.V.P. because, unfortunately, R.S.V.P.ing has just gone by the wayside. I don’t know if this is yet another sign of the times and people are too busy to reply, or if it’s something that’s now considered old-fashioned and unnecessary. 

As you can surely tell from this post, I do not think R.S.V.P.ing is old-fashioned in any sense. I think it is timeless and something that everyone should do, no matter how busy they are. When you think about it, does it really take that long to make a phone call, send a text, or e-mail? We’re on our phones all the time, so why is it so hard to R.S.V.P.? Certainly we’re not too busy (people being “too busy” now that’s another soapbox issue of mine, but I’ll save that for a separate post!) to take the 1-2 minutes out of our day to do this simple task.

So, in closing, I beg of you and plead of you to please, please, please, the next time you are invited to something that requires and R.S.V.P., please do so! Please! You will make that host so happy!