Hungry People Are Not Patient

The guests kept on coming. The room was set for 500, and more than 100 additional people arrived who were not accounted for. 

Internally I was panicked, externally I was calm and in “how-do-we-solve-this-problem” mode. These additional guests did not need to know that we weren’t prepared for them. 

There were a number of reasons the last-minute chaos happened—the main one? They didn’t R.S.V.P. 

R.S.V.P., an acronym for the French term “Respondez, s’il vous plait,”  is the host asking us to let them know ahead of time if we will be attending their event or not.

In the 90’s, I noticed a trend that people began not R.S.V.P.ing. As an event coordinator, I would spend hours calling invitees to see if they would be attending.  A LOT of time was put into this effort.

Why weren’t they responding? Perhaps waiting for a better offer? Or doing what I did: toss the invitation into a pile thinking you will respond later? Or, knew they weren’t going to attend anyway, so why bother?

This bad habit continues today. 

Did you know that it creates a ton of stress on the host? 

The host, no matter who it is, has put a lot of effort into the event. There is the art of ordering or making enough, but not too much, food. (It can be costly to over or under order.) Then there’s the seating plan. No one wants to be at a table set for 10, when there are only 5 in attendance. And, no one wants to arrive at a party and not be “on the list.” It can be humiliating for the guest and stressful for the host.  

Fortunately, the lunch was held at a major hotel that had the wherewithal to have extra food on hand, as well as the expertise to add in extra last-minute tables. The additional guests were sat, fed, and a good time was had by all (except for the event staff).  

This is not always the case. I have been yelled at by many VIPs who didn’t bother to R.S.V.P. and yet felt slighted at not being accommodated. Sometimes you simply don’t have the room, or the additional food.

I can admit, I used to respond late—take the invite and toss it into the “I’ll get to it later pile.” Then promptly forget. Then be embarrassed to get that call asking if I was attending. 

Now, I respond as soon as I get the invite. 

I urge you to get in the habit of responding to an invite as soon as you can. If a conflict occurs close to the event preventing you from attending, let the host know.  It really doesn’t take that much time, and they will really appreciate it. 

Have an etiquette question?  Send me the question at jankostner@gmail.com and I’ll be happy to answer and include it in an upcoming blog.