What does RSVP mean on a wedding card?

Four words of French: répondez s’il vous plaît, literally “reply if it pleases you”, or in plain English, “please reply”. The initials are read out as four letters in English — R-S-V-P — and nobody says the French aloud.

It is French for the same reason so much of the vocabulary of formal invitations is French: for a long stretch of European history French was the language of courts, diplomacy and etiquette, and the conventions of the engraved invitation were set down while that was still true. The phrase came into English stationery as an abbreviation and simply stayed, long after anyone needed to know what it stood for. You will meet its cousins on the same card — black tie, carte blanche, and on a French invitation the whole thing again as faire-part.

Some couples avoid the abbreviation altogether and write the request out: “the favour of a reply is requested”, “kindly respond by 1 May”, or just “please let us know by 1 May”. Those all mean exactly what RSVP means. None of them is softer, and none of them makes replying optional.

It reverses the request: reply only if you cannot come. No reply is read as a yes, and the couple counts you in. It is used for large, informal parties where most people will come and a full reply round would be more work than it is worth.

That makes it the one line on a wedding card people get wrong in the expensive direction. If you cannot come to a regrets-only wedding, your reply is the only thing standing between the couple and a plate with your name on it. Say so.

The other phrasings you will meet on the same line, decoded:

• RSVP by 12 May — reply on or before that day — it is a deadline, not a suggestion.
• RSVP M ______ — the old reply-card line. The M begins Mr, Mrs, Ms or Miss; you finish it with your title and name in your own handwriting.
• The favour of a reply is requested — the formal long form of RSVP, and exactly as binding. So is “kindly respond”.
• RSVP regrets only / RSVP if unable to attend — reply only if you cannot come. Silence means you are coming.
• RSVP to Mrs Whitfield, 14 The Green — the reply goes to the host named there, usually the bride's parents, not to the couple.
• Reception only — not part of the reply at all, but often on the same card: you are invited to the party rather than the ceremony, and the time given is the one you should arrive for.

Extremely common, and not a reason to go quiet. Work through it in this order.

• Search your phone for the couple's names — in WhatsApp, in your texts and in your email, including the spam folder and any “promotions” tab. A digital invitation is a link, and links do not get thrown away with the recycling — it is almost certainly still in a thread from months ago.
• Look for the plain web address — a printed card that carries a QR code nearly always prints the address underneath it, precisely so it still works when the code will not scan. Type that in instead.
• Ask whoever forwarded it — if the invitation reached you through a parent, a sibling or a group chat, they still have the link and you have not had to admit anything to the couple.
• Then just ask the couple — one short message, with your answer already in it. Example seven above is that message. Being asked for the link again is a mild irritation; not knowing whether you are coming is a real problem.

If you find the link and the form will not take your answer, the deadline has probably passed and the couple has closed it. A Wedvite invitation says so in as many words — “RSVPs are now closed. Please reach out to the couple directly.” — which is your instruction: message them, and use example eight. The mechanics of the printed-card version of all this are on the wedding RSVP QR code page.

Different job, so here is the short version and where to read properly. The deadline is the only date that matters and it is not a tradition — it is your venue’s final-numbers date minus about a fortnight of chasing time. The RSVP deadline calculator works it out from your wedding date and hands you three dates: when to send, when to send one reminder, and the reply-by date to print. Ask only the questions whose answers change a decision, and put the deadline on the invitation itself rather than in a message that scrolls away — which is the argument for an invitation that collects its own replies.

That is what Wedvite is: one link, the invitation and its reply form on the same page, the answers landing in one list instead of four group chats. It is one price paid once for the invitation — not per guest, with no limit on how many people you send it to: $49 at checkout today with SUMMER45 applied automatically until Oct 31, against a list price of $89. It stays live through your wedding date and at least 90 days after. If a detail moves, you change it on the page and every guest who opens the link sees the new version, including the ones who opened it in March. And because the reply-by date lives on the invitation rather than in ink, moving it is an edit rather than a reprint.

Wedvite's list price is $89. Until Oct 31, this code brings it to $49, applied automatically at checkout:SUMMER45