Welcome to Issue 5 of my Wedding Invitation Guide.
Printed response cards enclosed with your wedding invitations are essential in your planning since they are used to determine how many guests are going to attend your wedding. An accurate count is vital for food preparation, seating arrangements and other accommodations so ordering response cards can actually save you money. Response cards are returned by the date you choose and have printed on the cards (usually 2-3 weeks before your wedding day). Today, response cards can also be printed to allow guests to mark their entree choice as well as indicate if they will be attending your reception.
A response envelope is included with each response card you order and will be printed with the address of whoever will be keeping track of the guest count. As a convenience for your guests, be sure to include a postage stamp on each envelope for easy return mailing.
After mailing out my own wedding invitations, it was fun to always see whose response cards were returned and if they would be attending our wedding. For a few weeks, getting the mail was actually exciting since I knew there would be more than just junk mail and bills.
Be sure to keep your original guest list so you can mark off each name as you receive their completed response card. This will help you to know who didn't reply and who you may want to contact by phone to make sure they received your wedding invitation.
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Be sure to also make a copy of your original guest list for using when recording your gifts and writing thank you notes. We will discuss this further in Issue 10 - "Thank You Notes".
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To account for those guests who might forget to include their name on their response card, lightly mark a number on the upper corner or on the back of each card before mailing them with your invitations. Place that same corresponding # next to that guest's name on your original guest list. This process will also come in handy for any names that are not legibly written on their returned response card. When those types of cards are returned, just match the number on it to that corresponding number on your guest list.
An alternative to ordering wedding invitations and response cards with envelopes as separate items is ordering seal and send wedding invitations where the response card is attached to the invitation as one piece. Prices for this product include seals along with the return address printed on both the back flap when initially mailing the invitation and on the perforated response postcard. Notice I mentioned postcard which means that the return postage you supply for your guests will cost less since postcard rates are cheaper than regular 1st class postage.
