Traditional Reply Cards or Email Reply

amother

Tue, Mar 10 2015, 3:56 pm

We are making a bar mitzvah soon iy"h. We are debating to send reply cards or just put an email address on the invitation to RSVP too. We live in New York and our guests are all ages.

animeme

Tue, Mar 10 2015, 4:05 pm

I love email because I always have a record of what's up and people respond faster. Plus its cheaper. But if you do email you need to also include a phone number for the non - email people. If you have the type of family that will be horrified by this, it might not work.

amother

Tue, Mar 10 2015, 4:10 pm

we had this dilemma recently. We put in reply cards (without an envelope) since a lot of our guests were older people. We also included an email address and phone number for people to text or email their reply.

Some people sent the card back, others whatsapped or texted, and others emailed.

I think you need to include all the options.

We printed our own invitations so it wasn't that expensive to add the card.

amother

Tue, Mar 10 2015, 4:12 pm

I plan on using a printer to make the invitations. I have never noticed people put a phone number on the actual card before. Do you think it will make it look less elegant?

amother

Wed, Mar 11 2015, 2:04 am

nope. Ours were very elegant.

this is the wording we used.

(sons name) Bar Mitzva

_______________

will be able/unable
to attend the reception
on (date of barmitzva)

no. of guests attending __

Meat___ Fish___ Vegetarian___

Please reply by (date)
RSVP using this card or by email
to (my email address)
or by SMS/Whatsapp to (my phone number)

amother

Wed, Mar 11 2015, 4:28 am

If I do a reply card I was only planning to put his name on it. I never saw the food option before.

amother

Wed, Mar 11 2015, 5:42 am

amother wrote:

If I do a reply card I was only planning to put his name on it. I never saw the food option before.

You don't need to if its not done in your circles. Most of the wedding and simcha invitations we get have this option though. I've seen this more on invitations from not frum people. Although my wedding invitation had a fish option on it... We served a meat meal but I knew some of our guests eat fish but not meat and some are vegetarians/vegans. (in fact our veggie option was vegan friendly too) So it was helpful for the caterer to know how many portions of fish and veggie option to make. (we live OOT and lots of our guest aren't frum)

I would say at least 20% wanted either fish or veggie.

greenfire

Wed, Mar 11 2015, 6:45 am

create a dedicated e-mail address for the rsvp - it saves a lot of money on stamps & helps expedite responses when short on time

not sure how it would look on an invitation though - is there a direction map that the hall gives out - can you simply print this out on quality paper & cut them into small cards & insert in same envelope ...

skip the selections of food - gosh only the rich do this

amother

Wed, Mar 11 2015, 7:30 am

OP here I understand it's cheaper not to use reply cards which people rarely send back but do people really respond to emails for a simcha?

greenfire

Wed, Mar 11 2015, 7:36 am

those that don't send rsvp cards back - probably won't respond ... the older generations might not either - but most of his friends and your friends & neighbors probably would & family you'd know either way if they were coming

Iymnok

Wed, Mar 11 2015, 9:01 am

Most people your age or younger wouldn't want to be bothered with a stamp and envelope when they could type up a quick response. Use a nice font.

Barbara

Wed, Mar 11 2015, 9:04 am

amother wrote:

OP here I understand it's cheaper not to use reply cards which people rarely send back but do people really respond to emails for a simcha?

You mean by email? Yes. We rarely see reply cards for b'nai mitzvot anymore. But as others have said, provide an alternate for folks who don't use computers.

greenfire

Wed, Mar 11 2015, 9:09 am

amother wrote:

Greenfire is this your opinion or you just made a simcha recently?

Of course it's my opinion - unless someone took over my brain ... Scratching Head

I also made a wedding recently Cool

amother

Wed, Mar 11 2015, 11:44 am

greenfire wrote:

it saved us money... we weren't asking if they wanted duck or steak...we knew lots of people prefer fish and quite a few were vegetarians. I wanted to make sure everyone had what to eat. If I hadn't asked I would not have known how much fish to buy. fish is expensive.

shanie5

Wed, Mar 11 2015, 8:04 pm

For my sons wedding we did email or phone.
One of ds friends said to me that if you don't send reply cards with stamped envelopes, people don't send checks back in them Wink

greenfire

Wed, Mar 11 2015, 8:08 pm

shanie5 wrote:

For my sons wedding we did email or phone.
One of ds friends said to me that if you don't send reply cards with stamped envelopes, people don't send checks back in them Wink

that was an odd statement made about our wedding as well ... the fact is that anybody who cares enough to send a check will do so ... in their own envelope with their own stamp ... and to throw out envelopes for gifts is just rude imho