Organizing is a pure passion of mine – or an illness.  It depends on whether or not you’re talking to my husband.  And while “prepping” for wedding organization may  initially add on a few more minutes to your process…in the end, I promise you will not be running around like crazy trying to do a cram session of your guest list.  New York City wedding planner, Lisa from Anderson Green Events and myself have very much in common and especially when it comes down to organizing your wedding RSVPs:

Organizing Wedding RSVPs

Hopefully when you created your guest list, you kept an electronic record of it with which you can use to track RSVP responses. If not, there’s a bit of typing in your future!

You can either purchase Wedding RSVP programs that will help you track responses, or you can use excel. Either way, you’ll want to be organized enough to keep every response recorded and up to date.

Firstly, you want to track yeses and nos {as well as correct name spelling and any guests that are coming for your escort cards or place cards}.  After that, if you are doing a pre-selected dinner entree choice, you’ll want to keep track of that. And finally, if you are monitoring their accommodations for the wedding weekend, you’ll want to note that as well {helpful if you are delivering welcome bags around town}. Being able to give an accurate guest count and meal choice to your venue / caterer on the appropriate day will be incredibly helpful.

For more helpful tips from Anderson Green Events, be sure to check out the full expert advice article.

To help out visually,  here is a layout that I personally used for my wedding.  Keep in mind, I did have a few more columns and equations since I am a crazy excel person, but kept it somewhat simple for this post.  Ok, so below is the entire spreadsheet which is broken down below…

So first, I split my list into four parts (headers in blue):  Bridal Party, Bride|Groom Friends, Family of the Bride, and Family of the Groom.  You don’t need to do this but since we have such a large family I wanted to make sure I could really visualize all who’s coming. So next I used the following headers:

Guest Last Name, Guest First Name: This way I can easily alphabetize my list using the sorting option.

Children (age): I like to keep my children listed with the family, if they are of younger age and need for their parent to accompany them.  So next to the child’s name, I like to list the age in case the venue or catering needs to determine whether or not a high chair is required.

Role | Relationship: Since my mother has 11 brothers and sisters (yeah, crazy), I wanted to make sure that my husband or anyone looking at the list knew the relationship.  So you can type in “aunt and uncle” or “bestman”.  Sometimes I would just use it as a reminder like, “Sarah is Chris’s girlfriend” or if one of my friends is the “gift collector”.

Seating Card Listing: Keep this separate from your basic first and last name listing and enter in how you want the name of the guest(s) to appear on their seating card.  That way you won’t be playing the puzzle game when it comes time to address your envelopes or if you have to hand your list over to a calligrapher.

Address: Of course you will need this for sending out your invitations.

The next part of the spreadsheet is keeping track of your RSVPs:

No. Invited: The total number you are inviting.

No. Attending: Those who have sent back their reply with guest count.

Table No.: Keep track of which table you have assigned each guest.

Hotel FRI and Hotel SAT: Basically this is for the accommodations I set up for my guests.  So Hotel FRI (Friday) and Hotel SAT (Saturday) basically helps me to keep track where guests are staying in case I have welcome baskets to distribute or have organized any special transportation.  Your guests probably won’t reply back to you with where they are staying, but you can certainly check in with your accommodations on a regular basis and ask for a list of those who have reserved a room under your room block.

Beef or Fish? I like to enter in each food option that I am having to keep track of it right when the rsvp’s start coming in.  And don’t forget to include a kid’s plate or a vegetarian option — basically whatever is specific to your wedding menu.

Notes: You have enough to remember during your planning process so use a column to jot down any reminders or notes about your guests.  For instance, do you need a high chair for one of your guest’s children?  Does one of your guests require any special attention whether they may be in a wheelchair?  Put these notes down and don’t be afraid to give this entire list to your coordinator, catering or venue.

Finally, keep a running total at the bottom so that you don’t have go through each time and add up the numbers.