When you drop your wedding invitations in the mail, you have a reasonable expectation that your friends and family will take the time to respond to them. But what if they don't? A lot of the problems that arise can be headed off at the pass if you know what to do. Learn how to avoid big time wedding Rsvp trouble.

The first tip is to know your audience. When I tied the knot, the majority of the people on my guest list were either local friends or adults who I knew were knowledgeable about social etiquette. I knew that I would not have to go to extraordinary measures to get them to respond to my wedding invitations, and that simply engraving "The favor of a reply is requested" on the invitations would be sufficient. And you know what – it was. There were very few stragglers who had to be tracked down, even though I did not put a deadline on the invitation. I generally believe that the people who will be courteous enough to respond in a timely manner will always do so, and that the same is true in the reverse; those who will not send in a note will probably not send in a response card either.

Most wedding planning books do recommend enclosing response cards with wedding invitations, and they have become standard operating procedure. A carelessly worded Rsvp card can cause more trouble than it is worth, however, so be thoughtful in your wording. It is risky indeed to leave a blank like where guests can fill in the number of people attending. Otherwise you are likely to find that the invitation intended for one couple comes back with 5 guests marked as attending (who the heck are they bringing?). The most fail safe option is to personalize each response card with the name of the invited guests, along with a box to check "will attend" or "will not attend". That way it makes it very clear that only the people whose names are shown are invited. If you trust your friends and family not to bring along random extra people, you could use the more basic format M___________ accepts / declines, etc. and allow them to fill in their own names.

If you are going to the trouble to have reply cards, it is a smart idea to include a deadline on them. Of course, you will write it in a genteel manner, such as, "The favor of a reply is requested by June 16th". Always, always, always give a due date that is well before you need the final headcount for the caterer. The wedding planning books advise at least one week extra, and two weeks wouldn't be a bad idea. It is entirely reasonable to request that guests accept or decline a month before the wedding. That gives you enough time to track down anyone who did not respond and to determine your final numbers and budget. After all, you need to know if you can afford to splurge on a full set of wedding jewelry for all of the women in your wedding, or if you will only give wedding jewelry to your bridesmaids.

As for those who do not send in a note or the reply cards, the next step is to call them. Wait a week beyond the due date for replies in case their card is in the mail. Always be polite; what if they never received your invitation? Make at least two attempts to track people down before writing them off. If you have the email addresses for all of your guests, you can take the proactive step of sending out a reminder a week before the deadline on the response cards. Link it to your wedding website so guests can click through and Rsvp on the spot if they have not mailed in the card yet. It is a great way to ensure that you spend as little time as possible trying to deal with big time Rsvp trouble.