Timing is Everything
How terrible it would be for you to painstakingly plan an awesome party, only to have everybody RSVP ‘not attending’ when you finally get the invites out! Most people living modern lifestyles remain very busy and schedules book up weeks or months in advance. For many people’s social circles, it’s no longer realistic to send out party invitations two weeks in advance and expect everyone (or even most people) to be available.
For this reason, it is crucial to confirm guests’ availability several weeks before you even start party planning. The first step is choosing your potential guests; then you must ensure that at least the minimum amount who you want to attend are available and willing to attend on your chosen date or an alternative chosen date. After all, it isn’t a party without the people. Here we’ll cover the basics so that you can start off your party planning with the peace of mind that, barring otherwise unforeseen circumstances, it will all be worth it!
6-7 Weeks Out
1. Review Your Calendar to Choose When You Want to Throw Your Party
Select not only the best date for you to host your party, but also one or two alternate dates that would work as well. For most people’s lifestyles, this means a weekend. However, people with alternative work schedules may select a weekday or otherwise unconventional time. Know your potential guests’ schedules, too, so you can come up with a date that would work best for you and for most of your invitees.
2. Create Your Potential Guest List
Make a list of all of the guests who you would like to invite, keeping in mind important criteria to vet your guests appropriately. Decide the minimum number of guests you desire to make throwing the party worth your effort and everyone’s enjoyment, as well as the maximum number of people you can comfortably host. Order this list by preference if applicable, with those who you especially want to attend at the top of the list (this may include your best friends and/or people who you know would most love your party’s theme). It’s fine if your list exceeds the maximum number of people you want to attend because not everyone will always be available.
6 Weeks Out
1. Contact Potential Guests to Make Sure They Are Willing and Available to Attend Your Party
Before settling on a definite party date, you need to reach out and ask prospective guests whether they are available on your chosen date, and whether they would definitely like to attend. With that confirmation from the minimum amount of guests you decide is worth putting in the effort to throw a party for, you can lock in whichever chosen party date on your calendar and request that they, likewise, lock in your party on their own calendars.
Depending on your guests’ life stage and lifestyle, you may want to confirm even earlier than 6 weeks in advance if they will be available for your prospective party date(s). Many people’s weekends book up fast! On the other hand, the people in your circle may have a wide open calendar of availability. In that case, maybe 5 weeks in advance – or even 4 – is sufficient. It just depends on how busy your prospective guests tend to be. I generally recommend checking in no later than 6 weeks prior to your earliest potential party date, but use your own best judgment based on what you know about the lives and schedules of those who you’ll invite. Keep in mind the following tips, too:
1) First, only contact up to the maximum amount of people who you can accommodate
If your guest list exceeds the maximum amount of people you can host, don’t contact every person on that list at once. Only reach out in advance to the amount of people you can host (starting at the top of your list, if ordered by preference). That way, if everybody you contact confirms their availability for your party on its given date, you won’t have accidentally invited too many people.
Contact your potential guests (or at least most of them, depending on your maximum count) to ask them whether they would be interested in coming to your party and are available on the proposed date. You can ask them in person, over the phone, over text, by email, or via whichever messaging method is easiest and most convenient for you and any given person. If the minimum amount of guests you desire are not available on the proposed date, ask about an alternate date.
For whichever date you choose that works out for the minimum number of people who confirm that they are willing and able to attend, have them reserve that date on their calendar for your party. At this point, the only details they need to know are what type of party they will attend, the date, and the general time of day it will take place (morning, afternoon or evening). Of course, you can give them as many details as you’d like at any time, but tell them you’ll provide further details in a formal invitation within the next couple of weeks.
2) Contact any remaining people you haven’t yet reached out to, up to the maximum count
If you haven’t already contacted everyone on your potential guest list to confirm their availability, contact the rest – but only as many to total the maximum amount of guests you can accommodate. Depending on how many people are available, you may be able to include everyone. Or, you may need to hold off on some people, simply due to space or food budget. If they’re people you want to include and you don’t want them to feel excluded should they learn about your party, you could certainly opt to plan another party in the near future and tell them they’ll be at the top of that guest list (in other words, ‘rotate guests’ for different parties at different times).
Should anyone confirm that they won’t be available, you can scratch their name off the list and then reach out to others listed further down the list to add up to your maximum guest count, should you choose to do so. If there is no preferred order to your list and you’re equally happy to see any guest as much as another, simply make sure you only first reach out to the maximum amount of people you can accommodate.
4 Weeks Out
1. Send Official Invitations to Confirmed Guests
A couple of weeks after confirming guests’ availability and attendance (and preferably no later than 4 weeks in advance), send your confirmed guests a formal invitation with all the party details. You could send a physical invitation via traditional post (this is a helpful reminder for people to keep on their refrigerator), or you could create an evite and send electronically (this is helpful for people to quickly and easily access the information on their phones). Paper invitations are fun and many people appreciate tactile reminders, but evites are more budget friendly.
As mentioned in the above section on confirming guests’ availability in advance, depending on the type of party you’re hosting and the lifestyles of your guests, you could wait until 3 weeks before the party to send the invitation. I generally recommend 4 weeks, as that should cover ample time for people to make any plans in advance. For instance, if it’s a potluck, they’ll want plenty of time to plan and acquire ingredients to make whatever dish they’ll share. If costumes are encouraged, they may need plenty of time to assemble a costume.
1) Double confirmation: request an RSVP
Even though you’ve already confirmed who plans to come to your party, you should still request an RSVP on the official invitation. Barring an unforeseen event or emergency, you’ll already have a good idea of who is going to attend. But plenty of things could happen in people’s lives within those couple of weeks after their initial confirmation that changes their ability to attend as planned. It’s important to know closer to the party date whether everyone can still come – especially when it comes to budgeting for food.
2) Include all relevant details
Let your guests know what to expect! Share the party’s theme, what kind of food to expect and how much (i.e. appetizers vs. a full meal or potluck), whether they should bring anything (i.e. potluck dish or something relevant to the theme), what they’re encouraged to wear if applicable, and anything else. People like to feel prepared. The more clear and concise you can be with your party’s details, the better. And, of course, include basic logistics: your contact information (and how you prefer to receive their RSPV), your address, any directions if relevant, and the party’s date and time. If you have a definite time limit as to when you want everyone out the door, be sure to include that end-time as well.
Overview of When to Invite Guests
As we discussed, there is some flexibility with when you invite your guests, depending on their lifestyle and how busy they are. However, here is what I generally recommend for the average modern lifestyle:
- 6-7 weeks before your earliest prospective party date: review your calendar to choose when you want to throw your party, and create your potential guest list
- 6 weeks before your earliest prospective party date: contact potential guests to confirm that they would like to attend your party and are available on whichever chosen date. Remember to first contact only up to the maximum amount of people who you can accommodate, and then contact any remaining people you haven’t yet reached out to (up to the maximum count)
- 4 weeks before your party: send official invitations to confirmed guests. Be sure to include an RSVP request for double confirmation, and include all basic and relevant details
Knowing when to invite guests to your party may seem complicated, but that’s only because modern lifestyles and schedules can be quite complicated! Use these guidelines to clarify and streamline your party invitation process to make it as smooth and simple as possible. Once you have your guest list and party date locked into place, you’ll be free to proceed with all of the real party planning fun!