Last week I talked about the anatomy of a wedding invitation, the most important piece in your stationery suite.  Today, I’m talking about how to word your reply card – the second most important piece in your suite.  The reply card tells YOU the who, how many, and the what, if you’re including meal selections on your card.  First, let’s get into the anatomy of the reply card.

 

1| the reply card

The second most important (and required) piece.  This tells you the who, the how many, and what they want to eat.

2| the response date

Be sure to include a response deadline for your guests, giving yourself a buffer to contact any people that don’t reply by the deadline.

3| guests names

Be sure to include a line for your guests to write their names so you know who is attending.  Traditionally, an M is included at the start of the line.  It stands for Mr./Mrs./Ms./Miss but can be omitted if you prefer.

4| reply options

You’ll want to know if they’re attending — so be sure to include options for your guests to reply if they’re coming to your wedding!

5| meal selections

This is only important if you’re having a plated dinner at your reception.  You’ll need to know what your guests are eating, so ask them to initial an entree selection.

 

Now that you know the anatomy of a reply card, let’s review the several different ways you can word a reply card.

 

You can interchangeably use Name(s) or M, or omit it completely.  You can use “accepts” or “regrets” or any variation you’d like, like “yes” or “no”, or something fun!  But did you notice what isn’t on the reply card at all?  There isn’t a line asking how many guests are attending.  The biggest piece of advice I give all of my couples is to never, ever include a “number attending” line on their reply card.  Why?  Because it’s literally inviting their guests to invite someone else to their wedding.  Maybe Aunt Martha is in town that weekend, or cousin Bobby happens to be spending that Saturday with your guest.  You wouldn’t believe it, but it actually happens and I always err on the side of caution.  The best way to avoid this?  Omitting the number attending line on your reply card and carefully wording your guest addressing.   I’ll cover guest addressing in another post.

Hopefully this clears up some confusion you may have had regarding reply cards.  Have any questions?  Drop a comment below!