Guest lists, invitations and RSVPs: a headcount you can use
A guest list counted in people, not households; an invitation date and a reply-by date set from your first supplier deadline; the dietary and access question asked; and a planning number you decide on purpose.
- Start here: the essentials
- The guest list counts people
- When to invite, and the reply-by date
- What the invitation says
- Asking about dietary and access needs
- The planning number
- Following up, changes and privacy
- No-show figures, accommodation statements and the timing table
- See it: Marcus's six and the Ortiz party
- Practice: the list, the dates and the number
- Your event
- Check your work
- Knowledge check and scenario
Start here Essentials
For a first pass, this chapter asks for a counted guest list, two dates, one question on the invitation and one number. A dinner for six needs a few minutes for each; a party of 50 needs an evening for the list and a day of phone calls near the end.
- List the guests and count them, children separately. One row per invitation, with how many people it covers (the guest list counts people).
- Set the invitation date and a reply-by date. Put the reply-by date a few days before your first supplier or shopping deadline (when to invite).
- Put the dietary and access question on the invitation. Name one contact and a date to reply by (dietary and access needs).
- On the reply-by date, count the yeses and decide your planning number. Follow up with anyone who has not replied, then set your own allowance for no-replies and no-shows (the planning number).
Minimum time: about 30 minutes to list and invite, then an hour on the reply-by date. Done when: the guest list shows a planning number and the date it is final.
The guest list counts people Understand
The guest list is the record of everyone you invite: one row per invitation, with how many people it covers and what they told you. An invitation goes to a household or a person; food, chairs and the caterer's bill go to people. So the list carries a party size for each row (the number of people that invitation covers) and a separate count of children in it. "The Garcias" might be two people or five.
Count the hosts, and helpers who stay for the meal. The setup's guest count and every calculator here include them.
Children are counted separately because some caterers price their plates differently, their portions may differ (Feeding a crowd), they may need high chairs or a table of their own, and someone has to watch them (Volunteers and helpers).
Why the list drives the rest
Most of a budget is either fixed (the place, the tent, a performer) or per guest (food, drinks, chairs, plates). The per-guest lines grow with every name. If food, drink and rentals come to $25 a guest, ten more guests add $250 before anything else changes. That figure is invented to show the arithmetic, not a typical cost. The budget separates the two kinds of cost, and the list is the lever on the second kind.
| The count sets | Where it is worked out |
|---|---|
| Food quantities | A dinner party or Feeding a crowd; the food calculator |
| Drinks and ice | The drinks calculator |
| Seats and tables | The tables calculator |
| Whether the place holds everyone | Venue and layout; the capacity calculator |
| Per-guest costs and the total | The budget; the budget calculator |
| The caterer's final count | The planning number, below, and Hiring suppliers |
| How many helpers | Volunteers and helpers |
Who is on it
If two hosts each add "a few friends", the count drifts. The event brief names who decides the guest list and holds the target and the maximum; check the list against them before anything goes out.
Decide plus-ones and children before you invite, and write the decision on the invitation. Emily Post's advice to guests is not to ask to bring someone, because an invitation that includes a guest or children says so (Emily Post's Invitation Etiquette). Convention That convention only works if your invitation is specific: "Ana and Paul", "the Lee family", or "you and a guest".
The guest list sheet has a row per invitation (name, party size, children, invited on, reply, dietary needs, access needs, notes), and totals the party size and children columns.
When to invite, and the reply-by date
An invitation has two dates that matter to you: the invitation date, when it goes out, and the reply-by date (the RSVP date), when you need every answer. They are set by different things.
The invitation date is a convention
Emily Post's table gives lead times by kind of event, and says they are not set in stone (Emily Post's Invitation Timing). Convention Its reasoning is practical: too late and guests are already booked; too early and the invitation gets lost or forgotten. For an important event or a large list, it says to "err on the early side".
| Kind of event | When to invite, by Emily Post's table |
|---|---|
| Informal dinner | A few days to 3 weeks |
| Graduation party | 3 weeks |
| Formal dinner | 3 to 6 weeks |
| Charity ball | 6 weeks to 3 months |
The rows for other events (anniversary, cocktail, holiday and casual parties) are under Go deeper. If your event has no row, pick the nearest one, and move toward the early end when guests travel or the date is in a busy season.
The reply-by date comes from your deadlines
No etiquette source fixes the reply-by date. Emily Post's timing page gives no rule for it. So we set it backward from the first date on which someone outside your household needs your number. Convention
- A caterer's final count. The final count is the number of guests you give a caterer or venue by its deadline, and it usually becomes the guarantee, the number you pay for at least. Three caterers' published terms show how much the deadline varies: 48 hours before the event at Carnegie Mellon's campus caterer (CMU Dining's catering policies), 3 pm on the Tuesday of the week before at Vanderbilt's (Vanderbilt Catering's policies), and two weeks before at the University of Puget Sound's (Puget Sound's booking and cancellation page). Product-specific
- A venue's guarantee or a rental order, if either needs numbers by a date.
- Your own shopping day, if you cook. For a dinner at home, this is the only deadline.
Take the earliest of these and set the reply-by date at least three days before it. The gap is for following up with people who have not answered. Three days is our convention, to leave a weekday evening or two for calls; no source gives a figure. Convention Ask each supplier for its own deadline in writing; it replaces any example here. Ask the authority
| Working back from a Saturday party | Example date | Set by |
|---|---|---|
| The party | Saturday | The brief |
| Final count to the caterer | Thursday noon | The caterer's contract |
| Last follow-up calls | Tuesday and Wednesday evenings | Our convention |
| Reply-by date | Monday | Three days or more before the first deadline |
| Invitations out | 3 to 6 weeks before the party | Emily Post's table, nearest row |
The deadline rows go into the dated schedule in The planning schedule, which works every task back from the event date.
What guests are asked to do
Emily Post's advice to guests is to reply within a day or two, and by the deadline at the latest. It also describes regrets only: guests reply only if they cannot come, and silence means yes. That leaves you no count of yeses. For anything with a final count, ask everyone to reply yes or no. Preference
What the invitation says
An invitation is the guest's copy of the brief. It answers what a guest needs to decide and to arrive, and it tells them how to answer you. Paper, email, a text or an invitation website all work; what matters is that replies land in one place, which is your guest list.
- Who is hosting, and for whom. "Two sisters invite you to their father's 80th birthday."
- What it is. A dinner, a backyard party, a reunion picnic, a fundraiser dinner with tickets.
- When. The date, the start time and the end time. An end time helps guests plan rides and babysitters.
- Where. The address, which door or gate to use, and where to park.
- Who is invited. Names, and whether children or a guest are included.
- Food. Whether it is a meal, so guests know whether to eat first. For a potluck, what to bring (Feeding a crowd).
- How to reply, and by when. One contact, by phone and by text or email, and the reply-by date.
- The dietary and access question. One or two sentences, worded in the next section.
- Anything a guest would want to know in advance. Dress if it matters, outdoors in heat, steps at the entrance, pets in the house, no gifts.
A fundraiser's announcement is an invitation with a price. It also says what the ticket includes and how to buy one. If a ticket costs more than $75 and includes a meal, the charity's disclosure rules are in The budget.
Asking about dietary and access needs
Dietary needs are anything that limits what a guest can eat: a food allergy, an intolerance, a vegetarian or vegan diet, a religious rule, a medical diet. Access needs are what a guest needs to arrive, move around, hear, see, sit, rest and take part: a step-free route, a seat near the door or the restroom, a quiet corner, large print, room for a wheelchair or a walker, a service animal. Both are easier to plan for in advance than on the day, and the invitation is where you ask.
Ask on the invitation, with a contact and a date
The ADA National Network's guide says event materials should give a contact and a reasonable deadline for requesting services (the ADA National Network's planning guide for temporary events). Three universities publish wording for their own events, with a dietary line and a date (UW-Madison's tagline guide, Illinois State's accessibility statements), and Northwestern says to give both a phone number and an email (Northwestern's Accessible Event Guide). A line in that pattern:
"If you have any food allergies or dietary needs, or need anything to get in, get around or take part (a step-free way in, a seat in the shade, somewhere quiet), tell [name] at [phone] or [email] by [date]."
Use your reply-by date as the date, so one deadline covers both.
Ask what they avoid, and how strictly
"Any allergies?" gets "nuts". The menu needs more than that. For a food allergy, ask which foods, and whether the guest also avoids food made on shared equipment or labelled "may contain". FDA lists nine major food allergens: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans and sesame (FDA's Food Allergies page). FDA also says "may contain" statements are voluntary and that it has set no threshold for any allergen, so a label alone may not answer the guest's question. The guest is the authority on their own allergy; Ask the authority the host's job is to ask and to plan the menu with them (A dinner party; Feeding a crowd). Ask the same two questions about a religious or medical diet.
For access, ask what would help, not what the condition is: a guest can say "a chair near the door" without explaining why. The answers go to Venue and layout, which checks the route, the seats and the restroom.
Late requests
Set a deadline so you have time to plan, and treat a request that comes after it as something to try for, not a reason to say no. The universities' statements on late requests are compared under Go deeper. Preference
Where the answers go
Write each answer in the guest list, in the guest's words, and pass dietary needs to whoever cooks or caters; Vanderbilt's caterer asks to be told in advance (Hiring suppliers puts them in the supplier brief). Share health details only with the people who need them, and tell the guest who will know.
Asking about access needs is good practice for any host, and the ADA National Network's guide is a planning guide, not a statement of what a private host must do. Whether the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to a given event depends on the place and on who runs it; a rented hall or a public community event may be covered. This manual does not say that the ADA applies to your event. For a rented place, ask the venue what it provides. A guest's allergy is managed with the guest: the manual does not judge what is safe for anyone to eat. In a serious allergic reaction, call 911.
The planning number
The planning number is the count you plan food, seats and drinks on, and the number you give a supplier as the final count. It starts from the yeses you have, and adds or takes away only what you decide to.
Planning number = yeses + (no-replies × the share you expect to come) − (yeses × the share you expect not to come). Round up to a whole person.
The two shares are yours. The no-reply allowance is the share of people who did not answer that you expect to come anyway. The no-show allowance is the share of yeses you expect not to come. Both start at 0 in the headcount calculator, and that is our default: plan for the people who said yes. Convention
The default is 0 because no source measures how many invited guests come to a private party. The published no-show figures come from registered and ticketed events and are under Go deeper. You know your guests: an uncle who does not reply but turns up every year is a reason to count him; a group of colleagues invited to a free evening might be a reason for a no-show allowance. Write down why you chose each share, so you can check it after the event.
A worked example
A host invites 60 people to a Saturday party with a caterer. The caterer's final count is due Thursday at noon, so the reply-by date is Monday. On Monday she has 47 yeses, 6 noes and 7 who have not replied. She calls the seven on Monday and Tuesday evenings and reaches three: all three say yes. Now she has 50 yeses, 6 noes and 4 no-replies, two of them relatives who she thinks will come.
| No-reply allowance | No-show allowance | Arithmetic | Planning number |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 50 + 0 − 0 | 50 |
| 50 percent (2 of 4) | 0 | 50 + 2 − 0 | 52 |
| 50 percent | 10 percent | 50 + 2 − 5 | 47 |
| 100 percent | 0 | 50 + 4 − 0 | 54 |
She chooses the second row and tells the caterer 52 by Thursday noon, not the 60 she invited. The 60 was the list, not the number.
What the final count costs you either way
Carnegie Mellon's campus caterer bills the guarantee or the number who attend, whichever is greater. Puget Sound's bills the guarantee and charges for extra guests served. Vanderbilt's does not let the count go down once the guarantee is given. If no guarantee is given, Vanderbilt and Puget Sound use the last estimate. Product-specific Under terms like these:
- Count too high, and you pay for empty plates. If 49 come and the guarantee was 52, the bill is for 52.
- Count too low, and the food may run short. If 55 come and the guarantee was 52, a caterer that can serve them bills 55; one that brought food for 52 may not have more.
- No count, and the estimate on the quote stands, at two of the three caterers.
Ask your caterer how it bills before you choose an allowance (Hiring suppliers). If you cook, a high count costs leftovers (Feeding a crowd).
Write the planning number on the guest list, with the date it becomes final (the earliest supplier deadline), and in the guests line of the brief. That date is when the number stops being a guess and becomes a bill.
Following up, changes and privacy
Following up
On the reply-by date, sort the list by reply and contact everyone still marked "no reply yet". We prefer a personal call or text to a second group message, because it asks one person one question. Ask for a yes or a no by a stated time ("by Wednesday evening"), and write the answer in the list the same day. If you share the calls with a co-host, split the list by name so no one is called twice. Preference
A short reminder the week of the event, with the address, the time and the parking note, gives a late "no" a moment to arrive.
Changes after the count
Emily Post says changing a yes to a no is acceptable for illness or injury, a death in the family or an unavoidable work conflict, and calls a no-show unacceptable. That is advice to guests; it does not change your bill. After the final count, a late "no" usually still costs a plate, and a late "yes" is a question for the caterer. Convention
Keep the guest list current to the day. The debrief uses it (The run sheet), and the count of who actually came is the evidence for next time's allowances.
Keeping the list private
A guest list holds names, phone numbers and, once you ask, health details. The guest list sheet stays in this browser, and nothing on this site sends it anywhere; it leaves your device only when you export the binder or share it on purpose. Before you forward the list to a caterer or a co-host, remove what they do not need. A caterer needs the counts and the dietary needs, not phone numbers or who said no.
No-show figures, accommodation statements and the timing table Go deeper
Measured no-show rates, from registered events
PheedLoop, an event-software company, published no-show rates from more than 1,070 events on its platform that had check-in data (PheedLoop's Event Data Lab Report #05). A no-show, in its data, is an expected attendee who did not check in; it cannot separate people who cancelled in advance from people who did not come. The events are mostly professional and organizational.
| PheedLoop's events | Median no-show |
|---|---|
| All events (the mean is 29 percent) | About 20 percent |
| Free events (389 events) | About 28 percent |
| Paid events (683 events) | About 17 percent |
| 10 to 49 attendees | About 32 percent |
| Small free events (10 to 49) | About 37 percent |
| Small paid events (10 to 49) | About 17 percent |
Eventbrite's UK blog quotes organizers of free events who report dropout of 25 to 50 percent, and some who plan for half (Eventbrite UK's article on attendance at free events). These are anecdotes, not Eventbrite's data. Its tactics are a refundable deposit, oversubscribing, reminder messages and a waiting list. A 2022 Eventbrite article relays reports of 17 to 20 percent at bigger paid concerts after the pandemic (Eventbrite's 2022 article on no-shows).
All of these describe registered or ticketed events. A cousin invited by name to a 70th birthday is in a different position, and no source measures it, so the headcount calculator has no default rate. If you use one of these figures, write where it came from.
An open house: Iowa State's 60 percent convention
An open house is a drop-in event with a long window, such as a graduation open house from 1:00 to 5:00 pm, where guests come and go and many do not reply. An Iowa State University Extension writer gives "a common strategy" of planning for 60 percent of invited guests at an open-house party (Iowa State's AnswerLine on graduation parties). That is one extension writer's convention for one kind of party, not a measured rate. Convention To use it in the headcount calculator, enter everyone invited as "no reply" and 60 as the share you expect to come: 120 invited gives a planning number of 72. Food for a drop-in is spread across the afternoon, which Feeding a crowd takes up.
Accommodation statements side by side
| Source | What it says to put on the invitation | Late requests |
|---|---|---|
| ADA National Network | A contact and a reasonable deadline for requesting services | Not addressed |
| UW-Madison | A named contact for accommodations, a date for requests, and a separate dietary line with a date | The template says it will try, and that late requests may not be met |
| Illinois State | A contact and a request to allow enough time; a dietary line for events with meals, or a dietary section on the form | A program may not refuse a request only because it missed the deadline |
| Northwestern | Both a phone number and an email; the deadline shown in all registration materials; a dietary example when food is served | Late requests may not be refused; make reasonable efforts |
These describe what institutions do for their own events. For a private host, the shared pattern is a model, not an obligation.
Emily Post's timing table: the rows for events like these
| Event | When to invite |
|---|---|
| Casual party | Same day to 2 weeks |
| Lunch or tea | A few days to 2 weeks |
| Informal dinner | A few days to 3 weeks |
| Housewarming | A few days to 3 weeks |
| Cocktail party | 1 to 4 weeks |
| Graduation party | 3 weeks |
| Christmas party | 1 month |
| Anniversary party | 3 to 6 weeks |
| Formal dinner | 3 to 6 weeks |
| Holiday dinner | 2 weeks to 2 months |
| Charity ball | 6 weeks to 3 months |
The table has no row for a milestone birthday, a reunion or a school fundraiser; the anniversary party and charity ball rows are the nearest.
See it: Marcus's six and the Ortiz party See it
Marcus Bell is a fictional person, and every fact about him here is invented for this manual. He is hosting dinner for five guests at his apartment on a Saturday: two couples and a coworker, arriving at 7:00 pm, with the main dish on the table at 7:30. He makes the side dish the day before.
Known: six people with Marcus, no children; one guest is vegetarian; one has a tree nut allergy. Assumed (Marcus's): he shops on Thursday evening, his first deadline. The dates. An informal dinner is "a few days to 3 weeks" in Emily Post's table; he texts the invitations two weeks ahead, with a reply-by date of the Monday before and the line: "Anything you don't eat, or anything that would make the evening easier? Tell me by Monday."
The open fact. Whether the guest with the tree nut allergy also avoids coconut and food made in a shared facility is the guest's to answer. Marcus asks both questions. The guest's answer (fictional) is that they avoid all tree nuts and anything labelled "may contain tree nuts", and that coconut is fine for them. Marcus writes it in the dietary needs column word for word, and adds a note to ask the bakery about its dessert, which A dinner party takes up.
The number. All five replied yes, so the planning number is six, final on Thursday. A Saturday cancellation changes one place setting (The contingency plan).
Elena Ortiz is planning her mother Carmen's 70th birthday with her two brothers, in her brother Luis's backyard on a Saturday in June, 2:00 to 6:00 pm. A taco caterer serves from 3:00 pm. The party has 45 guests, eight of them children. Every name and number here is invented for the example.
Known: the caterer's contract sets the final count for noon on the Thursday before the party (Hiring suppliers shows how Elena got that in writing). The invitation list, invented for this example, is 50 people in 17 households. The dates. Emily Post's table has no row for a 70th birthday; Elena uses the anniversary party row, 3 to 6 weeks, and sends invitations five weeks ahead because the list is large. The reply-by date is the Monday before, three days before the caterer's deadline, and the invitation asks about dietary and access needs.
The replies. By Monday: 41 yes, 4 no, 5 no reply. Luis calls the five on Monday and Tuesday evenings: four say yes and one says no. That gives 45 yes, 5 no, none outstanding. Eight of the 45 are children.
Assumed (Elena's): no-show allowance 0, because the guests are family and friends invited by name and every no-reply has been reached. Her planning number is 45, given to the caterer on Wednesday evening. Under these assumptions the bill is for at least 45 plates, because the caterer bills the larger of the final count and the plates served.
Dietary and access. Two guests are vegetarian, which goes to the caterer with the count. An aunt who uses a walker asks for a seat in the shade near the house; Luis checks the route from the side gate to the patio (Venue and layout).
Open: whether all eight children are under the caterer's age line for children's plates (Elena asks the parents during the follow-up calls; the caterer's quote sets the line); and how many of the 45 actually come (the count at the party, written in the debrief, is the evidence for the next family event).
- Emily Post's Invitation Timing: the full table of lead times by kind of event.
- UW-Madison's tagline guide: ready-made lines for dietary needs, wheelchair access and other requests, with a blank for the date.
- The ADA National Network's planning guide: what makes a temporary event usable, from the route to the restrooms.
Practice: the list, the dates and the number Practice
Minimum: the guest list with party sizes and children, an invitation date and a reply-by date, the dietary and access line written, and, on the reply-by date, a planning number with the date it is final. Time: about 45 minutes to build the list and the invitation; about an hour on the reply-by date for the count and the calls. Materials: the brief, your contacts, a calendar, any supplier deadlines you have (or your shopping day), the guest list sheet and the headcount calculator.
- List every invitation. One row each in the guest list sheet, with party size and children. Include the hosts.
- Compare the total with the brief's target and maximum, and with the place's limit. Cut or add now.
- Find your first deadline: a final count, a rental order or your shopping day. Ask a supplier for its deadline if you do not know it.
- Set the reply-by date at least three days before that deadline, and the invitation date from the nearest row of Emily Post's table.
- Write the invitation. Use the list in what the invitation says, with the dietary and access line, one contact and the reply-by date.
- On the reply-by date, count and call. Count yeses, noes and no-replies; call or text each no-reply; enter the numbers in the headcount calculator with your own allowances, and write the planning number and its final date on the guest list and in the brief.
Test your allowances. Before the reply-by date, run the headcount calculator three times: with both allowances at 0, with the allowance you expect to use, and with one you think too high. Look at the gap between the highest and lowest planning numbers, and at what each would cost under your caterer's billing terms. After the event, compare the count of who came with the number you chose, and write the difference in the debrief (The run sheet). For an open house, try Iowa State's 60 percent convention alongside your own guess.
Your event Your event
Check your work Check your work
Criteria
- Does every row on the guest list show a party size, and are children counted separately?
- Do the hosts appear in the total?
- Is the reply-by date at least a few days before the earliest supplier or shopping deadline, and do you know that deadline from the supplier itself?
- Does the invitation say who is invited (children, plus-ones), when it ends, where to park, and how and by when to reply?
- Does the invitation ask about dietary and access needs, with a contact and a date?
- Is each dietary answer specific enough to plan a menu (which foods, and how strictly)?
- Does the planning number show the yeses, the allowances you chose and why, and the date it is final?
Worked example
Elena's list has 17 rows: 50 invited, 45 yes, eight of them children, hosts included. The reply-by date is three days before the caterer's deadline, which she has in writing. The invitation names the children, the end time, the side gate and the parking, and asks about diets and access. The planning number is 45, with a no-show allowance of 0 and her reason, final on Thursday. It passes. The children's ages against the caterer's line, and how many come, are not settled.
Common mistakes
- Counting invitations instead of people. Seventeen households are 50 people. Fill in party size on every row.
- Setting the reply-by date on the supplier's deadline. Then there is no time to chase the no-replies. Leave a gap.
- Using "regrets only" with a caterer. You get no count of yeses.
- Planning on the invited number. The list is not the count. Use the yeses and your allowances.
- Borrowing a no-show rate from a conference. The published rates come from registered events. If you use one, say so and say why.
- Asking "any allergies?" and stopping. Ask which foods and how strictly, and write the answer in the guest's words.
What is still unresolved
Your supplier's final-count date and billing terms are settled by its contract (Hiring suppliers). Whether the place holds your planning number is settled in Venue and layout. What to cook for the guests' dietary needs is settled with them, in A dinner party or Feeding a crowd. Whether your allowances were right is settled only by counting who came, in the debrief (The run sheet).