- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Pre-School and Daycare
karleegirl
member
Interesting Birthday party turn-out
karleegirl
member
There have been lots of posts about bday parties on here so I thought I would share our experience.
Ds2 just turned 5. We had his 1st school friends bday party at a bounce house on saturday. He is in 4k at the same center he has went to since 10weeks old.
I passed out invitations 11 days before the party (right after all of the holidays). On the invite I gave the option to rsvp by calling/text or email. By thursday afternoon I had gotten rsvp's from about 6 kids. So I went ahead and bought the treat bags and supplies. I bought about 4 more than I thought I needed. I got a couple of rsvp's on friday.
Party time on saturday we ended up having 5 kids that never rsvp'd. One Mom(who of course did not rsvp) even put her other child (not invited) on our guest list. I was so irritated. I would never do this. All she had to do was pay for her other child. A couple other kids siblings came as well but the parents paid for them. But they sat the kids down at the party table for food without even bothering to check with me to make sure there was enough. (I had enough cake but not enough juice drinks).
I'm no etiquette queen but how hard is it to text me and rsvp? I was so irritated by the lack of common courtesy. I'm not sure we are going to do all this next year.
Warning
No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Interesting Birthday party turn-out
Totally normal for us too! It drives me crazy but we are getting so used to it. I don't think I will do like a Peter Piper Pizza party for this reason. Harm's party is on Saturday and we have X RSVP's with kids coming. I have no doubt we will have at least 5 more children with last minute RSVP's (day of even), 5 more who never RSVP. I've learned to be really flexible at home and just welcome everyone. Plan for extra food. Make simple cheap gift bags and have plenty extra.
For me it has definitely taught me that I need to be more mindful of others when we get invited. If we are running late or have to cancel I now always make sure to keep the host updated and RSVP in a timely fashion.
I hear this all the time! What is wrong with people??
We had a b-day party and had almost the same situation. We invited 12 girls, 4 rsvp'ed by the deadline, so I sent-out copies of the invite as reminders. 4 more rsvp'ed within the day, 1 the day before the party. 3 never rsvp'ed or showed. I had 3 extra gift-bags for 'surprise" kids or siblings.
I found it shocking. How are you supposed to plan for a little kid's birthday party when no one tells you if they are coming?? And bringing extra kids without permission is just outragous.
I don't get it.
And my adult family members were just as bad. We invtited the local bunch and they refused to tell us 'yes or no' - either they *might* be out of town or they didn't respond at all. The one person who said yes, changed to no - and then showed-up anyway. I had to plan a meal that would feed 2 or 10.
Yeah, I think it's par for the course. Out of 19 invites for DD1's birthday (all except two were from her preschool class), I got a grand total of three RSVPs that I didn't have to chase down. Mostly I got responses by asking the parents in person, "Are we going to see so-and-so on Sunday?"
The majority of parents never RSVP'd either way, and their kids didn't come.
But yes, it makes it really hard to plan if you have no idea how many people are coming!
DD1, 1/5/2008 ~~~ DD2, 3/17/2010
What is up with these parents? We went to a birthday party this past Saturday. It was for a little girl turning 5 who is in Lily's Montessori class (3-5 year olds). All the kids in the class were invited via evite. I'm really not into evite for a birthday party, but I'm a stationary kind of girl. In any event, most of the parents did not respond. I find that so rude! And a lot of those parents were my friends. I asked them, and they were so flippant about it -- "I don't know who that person even is!" or "I don't bother with class-wide parties."
My thoughts on that are: 1) This isn't about you, it's about your child. Did you ask your kid if they know the birthday person? 2) What about the poor birthday kid! Maybe you should consider showing a little support. and 3) The very least you can do is RSVP that you can't make it but appreciate the invitation.