Ask four things and give every one of them fixed options: is each named person attending, yes or no; who exactly is in the party, by name; which household on your list this reply belongs to; and a mobile number, so the next question does not have to go in the mail. Then, only if your caterer plates individual entrées, two more: the dish each person wants, named exactly as your caterer names it, and any dietary requirement or allergy, picked from a list rather than typed. Everything past those is optional, and past about nine fields in total guests start abandoning the reply half-finished. Free text is what creates the second round of chasing — "chicken I think?" is not a number you can send a caterer.
There is no universal field list. What you ask is decided by how your caterer serves, how many separate gatherings there are, and how you are collecting the replies. Find your row.
Ask meal choice per person, by dish name. Not per household, and not as a description you wrote yourself. Copy the dish names out of your catering contract verbatim, so the counts you hand back need no translation. If the kitchen calls it "pan-seared salmon with fennel", that is the option on the form.
Drop the meal question entirely and ask diet and allergies only. A choice nobody plates is a column nobody counts, and it invites guests to expect a dish that was never on offer. The kitchen still needs to know about the four vegans and the one celiac guest, so keep those two questions and delete the rest.
One yes/no per gathering, never one for the weekend. Each event is a separate invoice with a separate count, and the numbers genuinely differ — brunch is almost always the smallest. Tick boxes, one line per event, each with its day and time so nobody says yes to something they cannot get to.
Leave every children's field off the reply. A children's-meal question on a reply that was addressed to two adults reads as an opening, and you will spend the next two weeks closing it again. The phrasing that prevents the question in the first place belongs on the printed piece, not in a form field.
Add arrival days, the room block and the shuttle; cut an extra to make room. These three are the difference between a schedule and a guessing game when everyone is arriving on different flights. Something has to go to keep the form short — the song request and the note are the two you will miss least.
Ask two questions now, and the rest in a second message. A text conversation cannot show twelve fields at once, and it does not need to. Get the yes/no and the party names in the first exchange, then send the meal options only to the households that said yes — which is roughly two thirds of the work gone.
These four are the ones you cannot reconstruct later without asking every household again. Each block below is the question, its answer options, and the count it produces.
Will you be joining us on Saturday, June 14? ○ Yes, I'll be there ○ No, I can't make it Tallies as: one yes or one no against a named person, never one answer for a whole household. A household-level yes is the reason couples end up guessing whether that was two people or five.
Who is coming? Tick everyone in your party. ☐ Rosalind Achebe ☐ Marcus Achebe ☐ Neither of us can make it Tallies as: a headcount that matches your list line for line. Pre-print the names you invited and let guests tick them — a number can be wrong quietly, a name cannot.
Who is replying? Start typing the name printed on your envelope. ○ The form matches one household from your list and shows only that household's names ○ No match — a short "tell us your name" box that you reconcile by hand Tallies as: one reply against one line on your list. Without it you get two rows for the same family, a doubled meal count, and no way to tell which row is the current one.
Best mobile number for whoever is replying: ○ Use the number this reply came from ○ A different number: ______ Tallies as: a chase list that actually works. This single field decides whether your next reminder takes one tap or a whole evening, and it is the one piece of contact data worth collecting even from the guests who said no.
Choosing the questions takes an afternoon. Transcribing ninety replies — matching each one to a household, splitting the entrée counts, keeping the allergy list current as answers change — is the evening nobody warns you about. Text My Wedding asks each household by text and tallies the answers as they land.
These are the two conditional essentials — the entrée and the diet become as unskippable as the four above the moment your caterer plates individually, and pointless the moment they do not. It is also where fixed options earn their keep, because everything here has to arrive as something countable: a caterer quotes per plate and cannot price a sentence.
Rosalind, please choose your main course: ○ Herb-crusted beef sirloin ○ Pan-seared salmon with fennel ○ Wild mushroom and barley risotto (v) Tallies as: the caterer's sheet, dish by dish — 41 beef, 29 salmon, 14 risotto, 84 covers. Use the caterer's own dish names and the counts transfer with no translation at all.
Does anyone in your party eat to a specific diet? ☐ Vegetarian ☐ Vegan ☐ Gluten-free ☐ Halal ☐ Kosher ☐ No, we eat everything Tallies as: a short exceptions list by name — "Marcus Achebe, gluten-free" — read alongside the entrée split, not added to it. A vegan guest is already counted once in the risotto line; counting them again is how you order 88 plates for 84 people.
Does anyone in your party have a food allergy the kitchen must know about? ○ No allergies ○ Yes — nuts ○ Yes — shellfish ○ Yes — dairy ○ Yes — something else: ______ Tallies as: its own line on the sheet, never folded into "dietary". A preference and an allergy are different jobs in a kitchen, and if you hand over one merged list the chef will ring you to ask which is which.
Anything else the kitchen should know? (200 characters) ○ Nothing to add ○ Yes: ______ Tallies as: nothing you count — and that is the point. This is the one free-text box on the whole form, sitting after the tick boxes rather than instead of them, for the guest whose situation genuinely does not fit an option. Everything above it stays countable.
Everything in this section rolls up to a vendor who is not your caterer, on a date that is not your caterer's. Ask only the ones you have a vendor for.
Which parts of the weekend will you join us for? Tick everything that applies. ☐ Friday welcome drinks, 7pm ☐ Saturday ceremony, 2pm ☐ Saturday dinner and dancing, 5pm ☐ Sunday brunch, 10am Tallies as: four independent headcounts, not one. The bar tab, the dinner covers and the brunch tables are three separate invoices, and a yes to the wedding tells you nothing about the other two.
Do you need a seat on the shuttle from the hotel? ○ Yes — out and back ○ Yes — the return trip only ○ No, we'll make our own way Tallies as: seats, and seats are money. Coaches are quoted per vehicle, so 53 yeses and 55 yeses can be the difference between one bus and two. Ask per person, not per household, or you will undercount every couple on the list.
Are you staying at the Ferry House on our room block? ○ Yes, already booked ○ Yes, planning to book ○ No, staying elsewhere ○ Not staying overnight Tallies as: rooms still unclaimed in your block. This is the earliest deadline of anything on the form — most blocks release unbooked rooms weeks before a caterer asks for a number, and after that the rate goes with them.
When do you arrive, and when do you head home? Arriving: ○ Thursday ○ Friday ○ Saturday morning Leaving: ○ Sunday ○ Monday ○ Later in the week Tallies as: an airport-transfer schedule and a rough cover count for every unofficial meal. This is the clearest example of a field that is essential at a destination wedding and pure friction at a village hall — if everyone is local, delete it.
Nobody volunteers any of these, and all four are much harder to solve on the day than they are three weeks out. Ask them plainly.
Is there anything that would make the day more comfortable for you? ☐ Step-free access ☐ A seat near the front for hearing or sight ☐ A quiet space to step out to ☐ Room for a wheelchair at the table ☐ Nothing needed, thank you Tallies as: instructions for your venue and your table plan, not a statistic. A step-free route and a table with space around it cannot always be arranged on the morning, which is exactly why this belongs on the reply.
We'd love your children there. How many, and how old? ○ No children joining us ○ 1 child — ages: ______ ○ 2 children — ages: ______ ○ 3 or more — ages: ______ Tallies as: a children's count with ages attached, which is what the caterer, the venue and whoever is entertaining them all need separately. Ages matter: a two-year-old is a high chair, a nine-year-old is a chair and a meal.
Will you need a high chair? ○ No ○ Yes — one ○ Yes — two Tallies as: a number for the venue, which probably owns four and hires the rest. It costs one line, nobody ever volunteers it, and the alternative is finding out at 5pm on the day that there are three toddlers and two chairs.
Rosalind, you're invited with a guest. Who are you bringing? ○ Bringing a guest — their full name: ______ ○ Coming on my own Tallies as: a place card, and a confirmation of the party size you offered. A person's name is the one thing that has to be free text. If two names come back where you offered one, that is a conversation to have, not a data-entry error to absorb quietly.
Four questions that nothing downstream depends on. Add them only if you are under the nine-field mark, and cut them first when you are not.
Name one song that will get you on the dance floor. ○ We'll leave it to you ○ Our request: ______ Tallies as: nothing — and that is precisely why free text is safe here. No count depends on this field, so a messy answer costs you nothing, and your DJ will genuinely use the list. It is also the one question guests tend to enjoy answering.
Anything you'd like to tell us? ○ No, see you there ○ Yes: ______ (300 characters) Tallies as: nothing countable, but it is where a no explains itself. Half the value of this box is that guests who cannot come use it to say why, which turns a blunt decline into something you can reply to warmly.
Happy for us to text you for photos from your table on the day? ○ Yes, text me ○ No thanks Tallies as: a short list of people worth messaging during the reception. Twelve yeses spread across twelve tables will get you more of the day than any single photographer can be in two places for.
Is this still the best address for you? ○ Yes, 14 Ashgrove Terrace is correct ○ No — our new address: ______ Tallies as: a thank-you list that is already right, collected at the one moment guests are filling in a form anyway. Only ask if you are posting thank-yous — by reply time it is far too late to be gathering addresses for anything else.
Every question on your form produces a number, and almost none of those numbers are due to you. Here is who is actually waiting on each one, and when.
Your caterer, at the tasting · before anything is printed or published, often four to six months out. Invent your own descriptions and guests choose "the chicken", which the kitchen then has to map back to a menu line by guessing. Copy the dish names out of the contract exactly, even the ones you find fussy.
You do · usually three to four weeks before the wedding. Nothing happens on the day itself. It is a date you chose to buy yourself chasing time before the real deadline, which is why the fields above matter — every unanswered question is a household you have to contact twice.
You do, on your caterer's final-count date · typically seven to fourteen days before the wedding. This is the number you are billed on. Submit it as dish-by-dish counts that add up to your confirmed headcount — if the split does not total the headcount, the kitchen will pick the difference for you.
The kitchen, usually with or just before the final count · seven to fourteen days before the wedding. Hand it over as names and requirements, never as a percentage or a total. It sits beside the entrée split rather than inside it, and it is the one list worth re-sending if anything changes in the final week.
Your transport company and your hotel, in their contracts · often four to eight weeks before — earlier than anything catering asks for. The room block is usually the earliest deadline on this entire page, and unbooked rooms go back to general sale at general-sale rates. Ask both questions early enough that the answers land before those two dates, not before your caterer's.
This page is about the questions and the counts, not the sentences you print — the reply-by phrasing, the meal line, and the "kindly respond" formula all live in RSVP card wording, and nothing here re-claims that. Once answers start arriving, the final headcount turns these tallies into the number your caterer bills you on, and plus-one rules covers the reply that comes back with more names than you invited. If guests are scanning to reply, a QR code straight to your RSVP page carries this same question set, and automatic RSVP reminders chase the households that opened the form and never finished it.
Twenty fields sound like a lot until you see how few numbers come out of the other end. This is what each group of questions becomes, and what your caterer actually wants to receive.
Eighty-four confirmed adults become three numbers: 41 beef, 29 salmon, 14 risotto. That is the whole output of the biggest question on your form, and it only works if every guest answered individually — one meal choice per household collapses a couple into a single plate and the kitchen plates what you sent.
One line per dish with a number against it, a children's line kept separate because it is priced differently, a short exceptions list of names with their diet or allergy, and a total that matches the headcount you submitted. That is it. Caterers do not want eighty-four guest rows — the kitchen needs counts, the venue needs names for the table plan, and those are two different documents built from the same answers.
Your four vegans are already counted once, in whichever line they chose. Adding them again as a fifth number is the most common way a couple orders more plates than they have guests. The exceptions list is an instruction to the kitchen, not an extra column of covers.
Welcome drinks, dinner and brunch each produce their own total, and brunch is nearly always the smallest of the three. Resist the urge to reconcile them — a guest who skips brunch has not changed their answer to anything else.
Shuttle yeses become a vehicle count for a transport company; room-block answers become a release decision for a hotel. Both are due weeks before catering, which is why they belong on the reply rather than in a follow-up you send after the count is in.
That is the rough planning figure the calculator below uses, and it is directionally right: six fields is a form somebody finishes standing up, and fifteen is one they mean to come back to. Past roughly nine, move the optional questions into a follow-up message to the households who already said yes.
Every one of these produces answers you cannot count, or a question you have to ask twice. Both cost the same thing: another evening on the phone.
"Chicken please", "whatever's easiest", "the fish I think?" and a blank are four answers you cannot add up. Fixed options are not about being controlling — they are the difference between a number you can send a caterer and a spreadsheet you have to interpret guest by guest.
If no vendor, no seating decision and no message depends on a field, delete it. Every question you keep for curiosity costs each guest time and buys you a column you will not look at, while making the questions that do matter harder to reach.
A meal choice on the form and a meal choice in a follow-up text gets you two answers with no way to tell which is current, and it tells the guest you were not paying attention the first time. Pick one channel per question and record the answer where the tally lives.
Kitchens plate per person. A household-level answer means guessing whether both of them wanted the beef, and guessing at scale is how the entrée split stops matching the headcount.
The attendance answer is worth more than everything else on the form combined. Put it first, make it two options, and let a guest submit having answered only that — a yes with no meal choice is still a yes you can chase a detail on later.
A children's-meal or high-chair field on a reply addressed to two adults reads as an invitation you did not intend, and you will spend two weeks walking it back. If children are not invited, the fields come off the form entirely and the phrasing that prevents the question belongs on the printed piece.
Tick the fields you want on your reply. It counts them, estimates how long a guest spends finishing the form, flags any essential you have left off, and tells you whether what you are collecting is enough for a caterer to plate from.
Tick the fields you want on the reply and watch what it costs guests in completion time.
The essentials
Food and drink
Logistics
Nice to have
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 RSVP form
6 questions
Every field is a trade: better data for you, more friction for them.
A short form gets finished in one sitting, which is the only completion rate that matters.
Rough, but directionally right: every field you add is a place someone can stop.
Name the entrées exactly as your caterer writes them so the counts transfer without translation.
The essentials are the fields you cannot reconstruct later without asking every household again.
Guest name, matched to your list · Attending / not attending · How many in the party · Mobile number · Meal choice · Dietary requirements
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.
Four, at minimum: whether each named person is attending, the names of everyone in the party, which household on your list the reply belongs to, and a mobile number. Add two more if your caterer plates individual entrées — the dish each person wants, and any dietary requirement or allergy. Sub-event tick boxes, a shuttle seat and accessibility needs go on only if those apply to your day. Give every question fixed options rather than a blank line.
Only if your caterer plates individual entrées. For a buffet, family-style service or food trucks there is no per-person choice to count, so asking for one creates an expectation you cannot meet. In that case keep the diet and allergy questions and drop the rest.
Give each guest a radio button per dish, using the caterer's own dish names copied out of your contract, and collect one answer per person rather than one per household. The answers roll straight up into a dish-by-dish count — 41 beef, 29 salmon, 14 risotto — that adds to your confirmed headcount with no interpretation needed.
As two separate questions. Diet gets tick boxes — vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, halal, kosher — and allergies get their own question, because kitchens treat a preference and an allergy differently. Hand both to the caterer as a named exceptions list that sits beside the entrée counts rather than being added to them.
Past about nine fields, guests start abandoning the reply half-finished. At roughly twelve seconds a field that is under two minutes of work, which most people will do in one sitting. If you need more than nine, ask the essentials first and send the optional questions later, only to the households who said yes.
It is worth the line if your form is short. Nothing downstream counts it, which is the one place a free-text box is genuinely harmless, and it is the question guests are most willing to answer. If you are already at nine fields, it is also the first thing to cut.
Yes, and it is the field couples most regret leaving off. One mobile number per household turns every later question — a changed start time, a missing meal choice, a shuttle running late — into a text rather than a round of phone calls. Collect it from the guests who decline too.
Text My Wedding sends the invitation 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.
