What to do about the guests who never reply

However well you write it, a share of your guest list will not answer. It is usually around one in ten and it is almost never rudeness.

Before you chase anybody, separate them into three groups, because the same message does not work on all three.

Three kinds of silence#

They never received it. A wrong address, a message lost in a group chat, an inbox that swallowed it. No reminder helps, because the reminder goes to the same place.

They opened it and stalled. Waiting on a rota, a flight price, a childcare answer, or an awkward conversation with somebody else on your list. These are the ones a nudge fixes.

They cannot come and cannot say so. The most common of the three and the least understood. Declining feels like a small rejection, so they postpone it indefinitely.

If you can see who has opened the invitation, the first group separates itself instantly, and that is the single most useful thing about sending it as a link. Everybody who opened it and stayed quiet is group two or three. Everybody who never opened it has a broken address and needs a different fix entirely.

Fix the addresses first#

Before any chasing, go through the never opened list by hand. Check the spelling of every address. Ring one person in each household. Ask a sibling or a friend for the right number.

This is dull and it recovers more replies than every reminder you will send.

The nudge that works#

Six weeks out, individually, and short. Not a group message, which reads as an accusation aimed at nobody in particular and gets ignored by everybody.

Hi Sam, no rush at all, but we have to give numbers to the venue on Friday. Are you able to make the twelfth? Either answer is completely fine.

Three things are doing the work there. A real deadline with a reason. Permission to say no. And a single question, which means it can be answered in four words while standing at a bus stop.

What not to do#

• Do not send a group reminder. The people who already replied will feel got at, and the people who have not will assume it is for somebody else.
• Do not send three. One nudge, then a phone call. Repeated reminders train people to ignore you.
• Do not guilt them. We are still waiting to hear from you is a sentence that gets remembered longer than the wedding.
• Do not assume yes. Catering for a maybe costs real money.

The last week#

For anybody still silent seven days before final numbers, ring them. A phone call gets an answer from almost everyone, because the awkwardness that stopped them typing does not survive an actual conversation.

If you cannot reach them, mark them as not coming and tell them so in one line: We have had to give the numbers in, so we have put you down as unable to make it. If that is wrong, ring me today. That sentence produces more late replies than anything else in this article.

Next time#

Most of this is prevented at the sending stage rather than the chasing stage. A reply form on the invitation itself, a deadline written as a sentence, and the phrase whichever way. See collecting replies without chasing anyone.