Wedding RSVPs in the Philippines: deadlines, wording and follow-ups

For a Philippine wedding, send invitations 10 to 12 weeks ahead, set the RSVP deadline 4 to 6 weeks before the wedding, name every invited guest, and give one easy way to answer. Then plan to follow up personally with part of the list, because many Filipino guests reply late or not at all.

The hard part of a Filipino guest list is getting people to answer. Titas reply for whole households. Barkadas coordinate in a group chat you are not in. Some guests believe, sincerely, that showing up is the RSVP. Everything below works with those habits.

When should you send invitations and set the RSVP deadline?

Send invitations 10 to 12 weeks before the wedding and set the RSVP deadline 4 to 6 weeks before it. That gives guests at least four weeks to answer and you a couple of weeks to follow up before the caterer's cutoff.

Bride & Breakfast recommends sending at least six to eight weeks ahead and setting the deadline at least one month before, since suppliers want a final headcount around then. The Knot gives the same four-week minimum for the deadline. We suggest sending earlier than both because replies are slow: in RSVPify's data from half a million digital RSVPs, only about half had arrived four and a half weeks after sending.

Ask your caterer for their final-headcount date before you print anything. None of the Manila caterers we checked publish one, and it varies by contract.

What should the RSVP ask?

Start with who is invited and whether each of them is coming. Then add only the details you will act on.

• Name every invited seat. "Mr. & Mrs. Reyes and family" is how headcounts grow. "Carlo, Bea and Miguel Reyes" keeps them accurate.
• Ask about meals and allergies in the same form. Asking later means another round of messages.
• Skip what you won't use. In survey research, shorter questionnaires get more replies. A song request is fun. A mailing address you already have is not.

How should you word the RSVP line?

Give a date and a way to answer. Some examples:

Kindly confirm your attendance by January 15, 2027, using your personal link below.

Please reply by January 15 to let us know if you can join us. Tap here: [link]

For Messenger or Viber, keep it short and say why the date matters:

We're sending our headcount to the caterer soon. Kindly reply by January 15 using this link: [link]

More formal and Tagalog options are in our invitation wording samples.

Paper reply card, group chat or RSVP link?

Each has a place.

For what each route costs at 150 guests, including printing, see our digital vs printed invitations guide.

How do you follow up without being pushy?

Keep it short and personal. A private message works better than a group blast.

Hi Tita! Finalizing the caterer's headcount this week for the wedding on the 24th. Will you and Tito Ben be able to make it? We'd love to have you there.

Call family elders rather than texting them. Follow-ups work: in a meta-analysis of 38 studies, reminders raised response rates from 49.5 to 65.6 percent, and in the Cochrane review, phone reminders did best of all for paper surveys. Our guide on how to get every guest to RSVP has a full follow-up schedule and more scripts.

Decide the hard cases before invitations go out

Agree on these three as a couple, early.

1. The unconfirmed maybe: count them out for catering and keep them on standby. If a seat opens up, you know who gets the call.
2. The self-invited plus-one: if the RSVP lists exactly who is invited, the question rarely comes up. When it does, "the venue count is locked" is honest and usually enough.
3. The guest who never answers: after your final follow-up, Bride & Breakfast says it is acceptable to mark them as not attending. Philippine planners suggest a 10 to 15 percent allowance with your caterer for the few who come anyway (Event Nest).

That allowance has a price, so check your contract. Kawaii Events charges ₱600 per extra adult, and hotel packages charge several thousand pesos a head.

Let the tools do the chasing

You can run all of this with a notebook and a phone. Software saves the hours of matching names to replies during the busiest weeks of planning.

Ceremo was built for this. Each household gets a personal RSVP link that lists its invited guests, answers land in one guest list, the headcount updates as replies come in, and the "sino pa hindi nag-RSVP?" question answers itself. Premium adds reminder emails to guests who haven't replied. It's free for up to 50 guests, so start with a free invitation and see how it feels.