Sending out Invitations

Okay, here’s where things can be a little bit awkward. Scratch that; here’s where some people dread being in charge of a baby shower, because at issue is: who to invite?

A good rule of thumb here is to work with the mother (and ideally, the father) to-be in order to decide who should attend, and who should be left off the list. This is a delicate scenario and can cause a number of minor headaches (even some major ones).

The problem is, simply, that while it would be ideal to invite everyone who would want to attend, that’s just not practical; either economically, or simply in terms of planning. Ultimately, decisions will have to be made, and if you can work with the parents-to-be to make these decisions, the chances of making wise ones will increase.
Once you’ve figured out who to invite – and this process can take a few days of thinking and re-thinking – the next step is to send out the invitations. Ensure that you do this well in advance of the baby shower. There are two major reasons for this.

Firstly, you want to give your invitees enough lead time to that if they do have something planned on the baby shower date that they can, if they wish, move those plans in order to attend. If you don’t provide them with enough notice, even if they want to change their existing plans, they might not be able to.

Secondly, you want to give people enough time to RSVP (i.e. confirm their attendance). Some people are not the most organized people in the world, and as such they might not RSVP right away. As such, you want to give them a bit of time to get to this on their ever-growing TO-DO list.

Now, there’s another issue here that we should discuss. Some people think, or just assume really, that if you don’t RSVP, that means you aren’t attending. That’s actually not technically correct. RSVP doesn’t mean (even in the French language from where it comes) that someone is going to attend. It simply means: please get back to me on this.

So what’s the issue? It’s that it can be a little disastrous to assume that if you don’t get an RSVP, that people won’t attend. Because some people will simply show up, and when you say that you assumed they weren’t coming because they didn’t “RSVP”, they may frown and say what we’re pointing out here: RSVP, itself, doesn’t mean yes or no. It just means: please respond.

Naturally, of course, people should RSVP and let you know if they’re going to attend. It’s the polite thing to do, without question. But polite is one of those eye of the beholder terms; and people who haven’t invested several days of their life to putting a memorable baby shower together may not realize how impolite they are being by just showing up, unannounced.

So how do you solve this problem? Well, like all good solutions: you head it off before it becomes a problem! While you want to have all of your invitees RSVP, you should make it utterly clear that you’d like a response regardless of whether they will attend. To that end, depending on the size of your baby shower guest list, you should include a self-addressed stamped envelope and a self-typed note with each invitation that says something like this:

Dear Mary,

You are warmly invited to attend a baby shower for our friend Darla!

The shower will be held on April 15th at 1:30pm. It will be held at my home, which is at 123 Main Street. It’s just one block east of Main and 8th Avenue, and ample parking is available on the street. If you need directions, please call me at 555-1234.

We’d like to have a sense of how many of Darla’s friends will be able to attend. Could you please fill out this form below by checking in the appropriate box, and then mail it to me in the self-addressed stamped envelope provided? Please Send it to me by March 28th. Thank you so much!

(please check one)

• I will be attending Jane’s baby shower on April 15th at 1:30pm.

• I regretfully will not be able to attend the baby shower.

*** Remember: Please mail before March 28th in the self-addressed stamped envelope provided. THANK YOU! ***


You can create any variation of this as you want. This is just a simple little sample that highlights the things that you should ask: whether an invitee is attending, or whether an invitee isn’t. In other words, you don’t want any grey area here; you don’t want any default that says: I didn’t reply, so I’m not coming. A little note like the one above obliges, in a polite and tasteful way, your invitee to actively let you know whether they’ll show up or not.

Now, if your baby shower guest list is smaller and it’s feasible to do so, you may want to skip the mailing campaign and just phone people up and ask them to attend. If you have the time and the ability to do so (e.g. the guest list is small enough for you to manage), this is the preferred method. It gives your invitees the opportunity to ask pertinent questions, such as whether the mother-to-be is in any gift registry. Let’s talk about this right now.