Most wedding RSVPs should be due three to four weeks before the wedding — three for an all-local list, five to eight for a destination one. Enter your wedding date and this free RSVP date calculator gives you the whole chain: when invitations mail, the reply-by date to print, the nudge a week before it, the day you stop waiting, and the final count your caterer needs.
Work backwards from the wedding to the day invitations mail, the reply-by date, and the two follow-ups after it.
Leave it blank and every answer below still works — you just get “four weeks before the wedding” instead of a printed date.
The common case: a local core plus a scattering of guests who need a flight or a hotel.
A mix lists usually sit around 4 weeks.
Read it off your catering contract — 7 to 14 days is typical.
Private by design: every date and number here is worked out in your browser, and the dates and counts you enter never leave this page. We count anonymous usage — which mode people pick, nothing they type. Close the tab and it's gone, so copy your dates somewhere safe.
Your five RSVP dates
Reply by 4 weeks before the wedding
Five dates, in the order they happen. Only the last one belongs to somebody else.
The common case: a local core plus a scattering of guests who need a flight or a hotel. Mailing here leaves guests a comfortable window to answer.
This is the date you choose. Print it as a full date, not “two weeks before” — guests read a date and act on it.
Short and friendly. Most of the missing replies land in the two days after this one.
Name the caterer's date. A deadline someone else set is easier for a guest to hear than one you chose.
Your contract sets this one, not you. Check it before you print anything — everything above works backwards from it.
Decline, reply, and no-show rates here are planning estimates built from the ranges wedding vendors publish — useful for sizing a list, not a survey result.
Six steps, and every one of them is arithmetic you can check. The chain starts at the one date somebody else set for you — the final-count clause in your catering contract — and works backwards from there.
Open your catering contract and find the final-count clause. Most sit between seven and fourteen days before the wedding; plenty of venues want twenty-one, and resorts abroad often want thirty. That date is not negotiable and every other date on this page is built backwards from it, so enter it before you enter anything else. If you genuinely cannot find it, leave the field alone — it defaults to fourteen days out — then correct it the moment you know.
Mostly local, a mix, mostly traveling, or destination. The mix is not decoration: it moves the reply-by date from three weeks out to eight, and pulls the invitation mail date along with it. Pick by how your list will actually answer — a guest who has to price a flight and ask for time off takes weeks longer to say yes than one who can drive home the same night.
The usual guidance is three to four weeks before the wedding, and never later than two. The number that matters more is the gap between your reply-by date and your vendor's count: you want two clear weeks in there. If the tool warns that your final notice lands after the count is due, move the reply-by date earlier rather than hoping guests are quick.
It sits one week before the reply-by date, and it is the cheapest date in the chain — one message, sent before anyone is late, that turns a deadline people forgot into a deadline people meet. Chasing after the date works too, but every message after the deadline costs more goodwill than the one before it.
It lands three days before the vendor count so you have time to total the list. Decide it while you are calm rather than at eleven at night with the caterer waiting, and write it on the same note as the other dates. Households still silent on that day count as no.
Copy gives you the whole chain as plain text — paste it into your notes app, a shared document, or five calendar entries. Once invitations are out, the tracking tab takes the same wedding date and tells you who to chase and when. Everything runs in your browser, so the dates and numbers you type here never leave the page.
Each card is a complete five-date chain for a real-shaped wedding — seasons first, then guest mix, then destination lists, then the awkward timelines, then the channel you collect replies on. Copy one as plain text, or hit Personalize to open the calculator with that scenario already loaded.
Spring wedding · Saturday, May 15, 2027 · 110 guests, about a quarter flying in Save-the-dates: Saturday, November 14, 2026 Invitations mail: Saturday, March 20, 2027 (8 weeks out) Reminder to silent households: Saturday, April 10, 2027 Reply by: Saturday, April 17, 2027 (4 weeks out) Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Sunday, May 2, 2027 Final count to the caterer: Wednesday, May 5, 2027 (10 days out)
Summer wedding · Saturday, July 17, 2027 · 140 guests, peak-season Saturday Save-the-dates: Saturday, January 16, 2027 Invitations mail: Saturday, May 22, 2027 (8 weeks out) Reminder to silent households: Saturday, June 12, 2027 Reply by: Saturday, June 19, 2027 (4 weeks out) Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Wednesday, June 30, 2027 Final count to the caterer: Saturday, July 3, 2027 (14 days out)
Fall wedding · Saturday, October 9, 2027 · 130 guests, most within an hour's drive Save-the-dates: Saturday, April 10, 2027 Invitations mail: Saturday, August 14, 2027 (8 weeks out) Reminder to silent households: Saturday, September 4, 2027 Reply by: Saturday, September 11, 2027 (4 weeks out) Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Sunday, September 26, 2027 Final count to the caterer: Wednesday, September 29, 2027 (10 days out)
Friday wedding · Friday, November 5, 2027 · 90 guests, caterer only wants 7 days' notice Save-the-dates: Friday, May 7, 2027 Invitations mail: Friday, September 10, 2027 (8 weeks out) Reminder to silent households: Friday, October 1, 2027 Reply by: Friday, October 8, 2027 (4 weeks out) Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Tuesday, October 26, 2027 Final count to the caterer: Friday, October 29, 2027 (7 days out) A late vendor deadline is slack, not a reason to move the reply-by date: keep it at four weeks and spend the extra two weeks on the table plan.
All-local list · Saturday, June 12, 2027 · 80 guests, nobody needs a hotel Save-the-dates: Saturday, December 12, 2026 Invitations mail: Saturday, April 24, 2027 (7 weeks out) Reminder to silent households: Saturday, May 15, 2027 Reply by: Saturday, May 22, 2027 (3 weeks out) Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Sunday, May 30, 2027 Final count to the caterer: Wednesday, June 2, 2027 (10 days out) Three weeks is the floor, and it only works because nobody on this list has to price a flight before answering.
Local but enormous · Saturday, August 28, 2027 · 200 guests across 95 households Save-the-dates: Saturday, February 27, 2027 Invitations mail: Saturday, July 10, 2027 (7 weeks out) Reminder to silent households: Saturday, July 24, 2027 Reply by: Saturday, July 31, 2027 (4 weeks out) Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Wednesday, August 11, 2027 Final count to the caterer: Saturday, August 14, 2027 (14 days out) A local list this big still gets four weeks, not three — the extra week is chasing time, and at 95 households you will need it.
Half the list traveling · Saturday, April 24, 2027 · 120 guests, roughly half flying Save-the-dates: Saturday, August 29, 2026 Invitations mail: Saturday, February 13, 2027 (10 weeks out) Reminder to silent households: Saturday, March 13, 2027 Reply by: Saturday, March 20, 2027 (5 weeks out) Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Wednesday, April 7, 2027 Final count to the caterer: Saturday, April 10, 2027 (14 days out)
Travel list with a room block · Saturday, September 4, 2027 · 100 guests, 40 rooms held Save-the-dates: Saturday, January 9, 2027 Invitations mail: Saturday, June 26, 2027 (10 weeks out) Reminder to silent households: Saturday, July 24, 2027 Reply by: Saturday, July 31, 2027 (5 weeks out) Hotel releases unbooked rooms: Thursday, August 5, 2027 Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Wednesday, August 18, 2027 Final count to the caterer: Saturday, August 21, 2027 (14 days out) Put the room-block release date on the details card as well. It lands before your reply-by date, and it is the one guests actually act on.
Destination, flights mostly booked · Saturday, March 6, 2027 · 60 guests, save-the-dates went out a year ahead Save-the-dates: Saturday, April 4, 2026 Invitations mail: Saturday, November 28, 2026 (14 weeks out) Reminder to silent households: Saturday, January 16, 2027 Reply by: Saturday, January 23, 2027 (6 weeks out) Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Wednesday, February 17, 2027 Final count to the caterer: Saturday, February 20, 2027 (14 days out) Six weeks is enough here only because the save-the-date did the heavy lifting — most of this list booked flights months ago.
Destination, nobody has booked yet · Saturday, January 15, 2028 · 70 guests, everyone needs flights and time off Save-the-dates: Saturday, February 13, 2027 Invitations mail: Saturday, October 9, 2027 (14 weeks out) Reminder to silent households: Saturday, November 13, 2027 Reply by: Saturday, November 20, 2027 (8 weeks out) Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Wednesday, December 29, 2027 Final count to the caterer: Saturday, January 1, 2028 (14 days out) The count date falls on New Year's Day, so send it on Thursday, December 30 instead. Check your vendor dates against public holidays before you print anything.
Resort abroad, 30-day count · Saturday, November 6, 2027 · 55 guests, all-inclusive package Save-the-dates: Saturday, December 5, 2026 Invitations mail: Saturday, July 31, 2027 (14 weeks out) Reminder to silent households: Saturday, September 4, 2027 Reply by: Saturday, September 11, 2027 (8 weeks out) Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Monday, October 4, 2027 Final count to the resort: Thursday, October 7, 2027 (30 days out) Resorts and abroad venues often want the number a full month ahead. Find that clause before you choose a reply-by date, not after.
Eight weeks to the wedding · Saturday, October 3, 2026 · 70 guests, short engagement Save-the-dates: skipped — the invitation is the save-the-date Invitations mail: Saturday, August 8, 2026 (8 weeks out) Reminder to silent households: Saturday, September 5, 2026 Reply by: Saturday, September 12, 2026 (3 weeks out) Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Sunday, September 20, 2026 Final count to the caterer: Wednesday, September 23, 2026 (10 days out) Eight weeks still fits the whole chain. Mail the invitations the day you finalize them and phone the handful of people you know will drag.
Six weeks, nothing mailed · Saturday, September 19, 2026 · 50 guests, texting the invitations Invitations go out: this week, by text, with a phone call to anyone who does not read texts Reminder to silent households: Saturday, August 29, 2026 Reply by: Saturday, September 5, 2026 (2 weeks out) Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Sunday, September 6, 2026 Final count to the caterer: Wednesday, September 9, 2026 (10 days out) This is the shape you should not aim for: a two-week reply-by leaves one day between the deadline and the day you stop waiting. It only works on a channel that answers in hours.
Venue demands 21 days · Saturday, November 13, 2027 · 120 guests, catering contract says three weeks Save-the-dates: Saturday, May 15, 2027 Invitations mail: Saturday, September 18, 2027 (8 weeks out) Reminder to silent households: Saturday, October 2, 2027 Reply by: Saturday, October 9, 2027 (5 weeks out) Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Wednesday, October 20, 2027 Final count to the venue: Saturday, October 23, 2027 (21 days out) A 21-day count pushes the reply-by date out to five weeks. Ask for replies at four and your chasing window closes after the number is already due.
Two vendor deadlines · Saturday, June 5, 2027 · 115 guests, caterer and venue want different dates Save-the-dates: Saturday, December 5, 2026 Invitations mail: Saturday, April 10, 2027 (8 weeks out) Reminder to silent households: Saturday, April 24, 2027 Reply by: Saturday, May 1, 2027 (5 weeks out) Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Wednesday, May 12, 2027 Table plan and place cards to the venue: Saturday, May 15, 2027 (21 days out) Final numbers to the caterer: Saturday, May 22, 2027 (14 days out) Build the schedule against the earliest vendor date, not the one you remember. Here that is the venue's, a full week before the caterer's.
Printed reply cards · Saturday, May 8, 2027 · 100 guests, stamped return envelopes Save-the-dates: Saturday, November 7, 2026 Invitations mail: Saturday, March 13, 2027 (8 weeks out) Reminder to silent households: Saturday, March 27, 2027 Reply by: Saturday, April 3, 2027 (5 weeks out) Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Sunday, April 25, 2027 Final count to the caterer: Wednesday, April 28, 2027 (10 days out) Paper needs an extra week over a form or a text: the card has to reach them, sit on a counter, and travel back. Stamp the return envelope or you add another week.
Website form with a QR card · Saturday, July 31, 2027 · 125 guests, replies collected online Save-the-dates: Saturday, January 30, 2027 Invitations mail: Saturday, June 5, 2027 (8 weeks out) Reminder to silent households: Saturday, June 26, 2027 Reply by: Saturday, July 3, 2027 (4 weeks out) Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Sunday, July 18, 2027 Final count to the caterer: Wednesday, July 21, 2027 (10 days out) Print the reply-by date beside the QR code, not only on the website. Guests decide whether to act while the card is still in their hand.
Replies by text · Saturday, August 14, 2027 · 85 guests, mostly local, answering by phone Save-the-dates: Saturday, February 13, 2027 Invitations mail: Saturday, June 26, 2027 (7 weeks out) Reminder to silent households: Saturday, July 17, 2027 Reply by: Saturday, July 24, 2027 (3 weeks out) Stop waiting — silence counts as no: Sunday, August 1, 2027 Final count to the caterer: Wednesday, August 4, 2027 (10 days out) A channel that answers in minutes lets the reply-by date sit at three weeks. Do not shorten it further — the deadline is still doing the work, not the channel.
Judge every late reply against your caterer's final-count date, not against the reply-by date you printed — the count is the only date in the chain with money attached. These are genuine judgement calls, so here is what each one costs.
Take it, and say nothing about it being late. You built a gap between the reply-by date and the vendor count for exactly this. Nothing has cost you anything yet, and a guest who is four days late is not being rude — they are being normal. Add them to the list and move on.
Take it if the room and the table plan can hold it. The number has not gone anywhere yet, so adding a seat is still free with the caterer. The real constraint is the floor plan: one extra guest usually means redrawing a table, and a venue capacity or a fire limit is a hard no. Update the number you submit rather than promising first and checking later.
Call the caterer before you answer the guest. Ask two questions: can you still add covers, and what does each one cost. Many contracts allow the number to go up for a few days after the deadline and never down. One or two are often absorbed; ten almost never are. Only once you have the answer do you reply to the guest.
Say no to the dinner, and offer the parts that do not need a plate. Place cards are written and the kitchen has ordered. Inviting them to the ceremony, welcome drinks, or the evening party is a genuine yes to the parts you can still say yes to, and it is much kinder than squeezing in a chair that leaves someone eating a staff meal.
Treat it exactly like a late yes, against the same dates. The reason for the change does not alter the arithmetic. Run it against the same vendor date and the same table plan you would use for anyone else, so you are never in the position of explaining why one household got a seat and another did not.
Write the cutoff down on the day you print the invitations. Decide in advance: yes to anything before the count goes in, ceremony-and-evening only after that. Deciding once, in writing, is what stops the fifth late reply turning into a family argument about the third one.
Five to six weeks out is the usual answer, and eight if your guests are deciding when the invitation arrives. Six things move on a destination list, and only one of them is the reply-by date.
A destination guest is not deciding whether they fancy it; they are pricing flights, booking accommodation and asking for time off. Five to six weeks out is the usual guidance and it works when your save-the-date went out early and most of the list has already booked. If people are starting from scratch when the invitation lands, take it to eight.
Send it eight to twelve months ahead, with the location and the rough dates on it. By the time the invitation arrives, most of your list has already decided and booked — the reply-by date is confirming a decision they made months ago, which is exactly why it can sit closer to the wedding than you fear.
Hotels release unbooked rooms weeks before you need a headcount, and airlines drop group fares earlier still. Print that release date alongside the reply-by date, because it is the one that changes guest behaviour. Losing the block does not just cost money; it scatters your guests across four hotels and wrecks the transport plan.
All-inclusive resorts and many overseas venues need the final number a month out, and some want a rooming list with it. Thirty days pushes every date in the chain two weeks earlier than the domestic version of the same wedding. Read the clause before you pick a reply-by date, not after you have printed the cards.
Destination lists decline at a much higher rate than local ones — planning estimates put roughly a third of a destination list saying no, against a small fraction of an all-local one. That is not a survey result, it is a sizing rule: invite for the room you want full and do not treat a wave of regrets as a verdict on anyone's feelings.
Welcome dinner, the day itself, the morning-after brunch: ask for all of them at once, with a yes or no against each. Collecting them one event at a time means chasing the same households three times, and by the third round you have burned every bit of patience the first round earned.
The reply-by date you choose, the count your contract imposes and the number you submit are three different things. Mixing them up is the single most expensive mistake in the whole chain.
You do · three to four weeks before the wedding, five to eight for a destination list. Nothing happens automatically, which is why guests treat it as soft. It is not the day you need a number — it is the day you start having time to chase, and every week you shave off it is a week of chasing you will not get back.
You do · one week before the reply-by date. You lose the cheapest reply in the chain. Skipping it does not break anything, but it turns a friendly nudge sent before anyone was late into a chase sent after they were, which costs more goodwill for the same answer.
You do, and you should write it down in advance · about three days before the vendor's count is due. You hold seats for households who were never coming and pay for the chairs. Deciding it early is the whole point: the decision gets made while you are calm rather than the night the caterer is waiting.
Your contract, not you · seven to fourteen days before the wedding, twenty-one or thirty at some venues. This is the one with money attached. Miss it and you are billed on the last number you gave or on the venue's minimum, whichever is higher. Read the clause before you print a single card — every other date on this page is derived from it.
You do, on the vendor's date · the day the final count is due. Submit your confirmed yes count and resist trimming it for likely no-shows. Most contracts bill the guaranteed number or the number who attend, whichever is higher, so shaving saves nothing and risks a kitchen that is short.
This page gives you the date; RSVP card wording gives you the sentence it goes in. When the reminder date arrives, automatic RSVP reminders will send it for you and how to send an RSVP text has the templates — we date the reminder here and leave the writing of it to them. Once replies start landing, the post-deadline plan picks up three days after your reply-by date, the final headcount covers the number you submit, how to track wedding RSVPs compares the ways to keep the list itself straight, and a QR code that opens your RSVP page turns a printed card into a reply in seconds. The same back-schedule arithmetic runs through our other free tools: the wedding planning timeline dates the whole engagement, the day-of timeline generator dates the wedding day itself, and the alcohol calculator turns the headcount this page produces into bottles, and the wedding guest list template comes before all of it — it is where the names get decided, grouped into households and counted against the room, with who to invite to your wedding working through the decision circle by circle. Start anywhere — how to collect wedding RSVPs is the map.
This page does the dates. The replies have to land somewhere, and there are four honest options — including the free one we would tell most couples to use.
Free, no account, works offline, and yours forever. It is the right answer for most lists under about forty households, and it is genuinely what we would tell you to use. What it costs you is typing: every reply entered by hand, every plus-one reconciled by eye, no idea who has been chased and when, and a second copy in someone else's inbox by week three. It also does none of the date arithmetic on this page — that is what the calculator above is for.
These collect the replies for you, which is the part a spreadsheet cannot do, and if you want a wedding website anyway you are getting two things at once. The trade is an account, your guest list stored on someone else's servers, and a free tier that stops — commonly around a hundred guests — right where a real wedding list starts. Worth it if the website matters to you; expensive if all you wanted was a date and a count.
No account, no email, no upload. It does the arithmetic — every date in the chain, and the counts that hang off them — and the dates and numbers you type never leave the page. What it deliberately does not do is collect replies: the dates go on your invitation and into your calendar, and the answers come back wherever you chose to ask for them. Use it alongside a spreadsheet, not instead of one.
The reason we built this at all: the slowest part of an RSVP list is not the math, it is the channel. Text My Wedding sends the invitation and the reminder to each household by text, records the replies against the right names as they come in, and can tell you at a glance who has not answered. The dates above still come from this page — the chasing stops being an evening's work.
Every one of these is fixable in the ten minutes before you send the invitations to print, and painful to fix afterwards.
The vendor's count date is the only fixed point in the chain, and it varies from seven days to thirty. Pick a reply-by date first and you may find your chasing window closes after the number was already due — usually discovered about a week too late to fix.
A reply-by date inside two weeks leaves no room to chase anybody and no room to draw a table plan. Two weeks is the outer limit, not a target, and the further inside it you go the more of the work lands in the last two weeks, alongside everything else.
"RSVP by four weeks before the wedding" makes the guest do arithmetic, and a guest doing arithmetic puts the card down. Print the day of the week and the full date. It is the single cheapest change on the whole card.
Three weeks is a reasonable ask of someone who can drive home the same night and an unreasonable one of someone booking flights and time off. Same card, same wording, wildly different answer time — that is what the guest-mix setting exists to fix.
It is the other way around. The reply-by date is one you invented; the reminder a week before it is what makes it land. Couples who skip the reminder spend the two weeks after the deadline doing the work the reminder would have done in one message.
The first late yes gets squeezed in, the fourth gets a firm no, and someone notices. Write the cutoff down when you print the invitations, apply it to everyone, and you never have to explain the difference.
Three to four weeks before the wedding for most lists — that is the date people should RSVP by, and the one you print on the card. The usual guidance is three to four weeks out and never later than two: far enough ahead that you can chase silent households, close enough that guests still know their plans. A mostly local list can sit at three weeks; if half your guests are traveling, use five, and a destination wedding needs five to eight.
Count backwards from the date your caterer needs the final headcount — usually seven to fourteen days before the wedding, twenty-one or thirty at some venues — and leave yourself two clear weeks of chasing before it. That normally lands three to four weeks before the wedding. Print it as a full date with the day of the week, not as "four weeks before", and never later than two weeks out.
By the date printed on the card, and ideally within a week of the invitation arriving. If you already know your answer, reply today — the couple is working to a caterer's deadline behind the scenes, and an early no is far more useful to them than a late yes. If you have already missed the date, reply now anyway and say you are sorry to be late; they would much rather hear from you than count you as a no.
Six to eight weeks before the wedding for a local or mixed list, and three to four months for a destination one, with save-the-dates six to eight months ahead (eight to twelve for destination). Aim to leave about four weeks between the invitation landing and the reply-by date — enough to feel unhurried, short enough that nobody puts the card in a drawer and forgets it.
Five to six weeks before the wedding if your save-the-date went out early and most guests have already booked flights, and up to eight weeks if they are deciding when the invitation arrives. Check your venue's final-count clause first: resorts and overseas venues often want the number thirty days ahead rather than fourteen, which pushes every date another two weeks earlier.
Usually yes, right up until you submit the final count to your caterer, because until then adding a seat costs nothing but a redrawn table. After the count goes in, call the caterer before you answer the guest: many contracts let the number rise for a few days and never fall, one or two extra covers are often absorbed, and ten rarely are. Whatever you decide, apply the same rule to the next late reply.
No — guests cannot see your vendor deadlines, so an early date reads as organized rather than pushy. What does grate is an early date with no explanation followed by weeks of chasing. Pick a date you can defend, put it in one clear line on the card, and send a single reminder a week before it. That combination gets replies without anyone feeling managed.
Text My Wedding sends the invitation and the reminder by text, records every RSVP against the right household, and nudges the ones who go quiet — so your caterer gets a number instead of a guess.
