Bat Mitzvah planning - Lost invitations

[disneysteve]

My daughter is having her Bat Mitzvah at the end of September. We mailed out the invitations at the beginning of August and have already gotten about 1/3 of the replies back. We found out last week that my wife's one sister never received her invitation. That gave us a new headache that we hadn't anticipated. How can we possibly know who didn't receive an invitation unless they tell us? Until we start making calls to people from whom we haven't gotten replies, we won't know if any other invites were lost by the post office.

This morning, my cousin called from Florida. They just got back from visiting their one son in Oregon. They were there when he got his invitation. They had also spoken to their daughter who mentioned she got hers. They got home and retrieved their mail and no invitation. I thought that was another lost one, but as it turned out, I had sent it to their old address, so that was my fault.

But still we are left wondering who else didn't receive an invitation. I think what we'll do is make our follow-up calls earlier than we had planned to, not wait until the response deadline has passed.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Oh, dear. Yeah, I think you've got to make the calls.

[richinspirits]

that is really frustrating! do you think it could have been an issue with the postage? sometimes if something is right on the cutoff between the one-ounce and two-ounce postage, for example, maybe the invitations would have needed more postage?

also, in the last year or two, the post office has gotten a lot more strict about size/thickness of mail and making you pay more for things that don't fit within their guidelines. it's hard to keep track! were the invitations oddly sized? if not, what a sad state of our postal system, if that many are getting lost!

[PrincessPerky]

That is so frustrating, do you think you could share the load, with some sort of phone tree, asking others to help you hunt down who should have gotten one?

I am sure you don't need to be told that getting the word out about lost invites is important, so folks don't feel slighted....ugh what a headache.

[sounderella]

That happened for my wedding this year. Several people on my mom's side never sit in one place for a long period of time. So apparently I had a lot of old addresses. I didn't know until my mom's cousin called telling me she'd got her invite and was asking me if it was ok if she brought my great aunt since she didn't. She then told me several people hadn't either. On top of everything else I was worrying about I had to worry about that. Thank God my dad is self employed and was able to make a day of it calling everyone to apologize and ask if they could come. Surprisingly enough, not one of those invites was returned to me due to wrong address. There was no way I would've known if she didn't call me.

[Exile]

Here's an idea which I hope doesn't sound tacky: When mailing invitations, follow up the non-responders with an email inquiring whether or not they received the invites. If you don't get a reply, at least you'll know that the recpient probably received the invitation but isn't interested in attending. Moreover, if (s)he doesn't even reply to the email, that say something about the person's feelings about the sender. In that case who needs a guest like that anyway?

[disneysteve]

Exile, an e-mail could work, but it would require having e-mail addresses for everyone. I doubt that we have e-mails for more than 1/4-1/3 of the people invited.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

You have to start calling like a wedding. Especially since you found out people didn't get their invites. And it might be due to some postal workers thinking the postage inadequate.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by disneysteve

Exile, an e-mail could work, but it would require having e-mail addresses for everyone. I doubt that we have e-mails for more than 1/4-1/3 of the people invited.

If by chance you have email addresses for a larger percentage of the non-responders vs. the entire population of the invitees, it still might work. If not, then as LivingalmostLarge suggested, start dialing.