Does anyone know how to RSVP?
It’s been one of my all time pet peeves. I mean how hard is it to REPLY to an invitation with your intention to attend or not. These are the days of voice mail, email and IMs so you don’t even have to actually TALK to people when you reply. Just leave a freakin message. What is wrong with people?
My daughters’ birthday party is next week. I sent invitations out 4 weeks ahead since I knew some people would be out of town for spring break during that time. I gave people plenty of time, was very clear when I wrote the phone number on the invitations and asked that they reply by tomorrow (one week before the party)
So far, does any of this sound unreasonable?
So here we are…one day before the RSVP date on the invitation and I’m still waiting on NINE guests’ replies…or more accurately, the parents of just under one third of the guest list.
Don’t get me wrong… I don’t really want them all to come given the costs of kids birthday parties but I think it’s just freakin’ rude to not reply. Come … or not but just let me know if I need to eat bologna sandwiches that week for lunch to pay for the darn thing.
Which brings me to the next point. The pure extortion that is the children’s birthday party industry. Lindsay over at Suburban Turmoil wrote a great piece on this topic for the Nashville Scene. Check it out. She’s a scream.
The problem is that the days of simple pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey birthday parties are, alas…over. I have twins so while it does mean that I only have to do this party thing once… the cost of it no matter how you slice it is enough to make your head spin. I’m embarrassed to say that we will spend nearly $400 for under 2 hours of “fun” for a party for two 7-year-olds. I’ve already tried to rationalize it with “but we only have to do it once a year so it’s like 2 $200 parties. Right?
And if I have it OUT somewhere, then I don’t have to clean my house within an inch of it’s life.
Humor me, will ya?
I remember when a birthday party meant 15 or 20 kids came over your house, you played games, ate lunch, ate cake and went home. In fact, my most memorable birthday as a kid was the one when I was 6 and my grandma made chicken legs and french fries for everyone and all the guests got their own little ketchup packets for the fries (which now that I think about it, she must have been lifting from McDonald’s for quite some time prior to the party). We all thought that was “cool.” I don’t know what else we did but the pictures of the day, show about 15 little girls around my grandmother’s table and we all looked pretty darn excited about those chicken legs.
Betcha’ my mom didn’t have to chase down my friends parents for a reply to the invitation.
