According to Wikipedia: "Répondez s'il vous plaît", a French phrase that translates to "please respond" or "respond if you'd please" and word for word means "respond if it pleases you"[1]. It is with this meaning that invitation cards and similar documents are often marked with "RSVP." In Western and European culture, it is often considered rude to not reply to an RSVP request whether confirming attendance or declining.
Over the years I have had the pleasure and honor of being a hostess to quite a few showers (bridal and baby showers mainly) for some dear friends and family. A lot of preparation usually goes into each shower, including what food to serve and how much we think we are going to need. On every invitation ever sent out we have always included RSVP by this date to this number or email address and without fail we always end up have a ridiculous number of invitees that do not follow those easy instructions. And it's not just my generation, it's every generation!! Young and old. It doesn't matter the age. If you've ever hosted a shower, you know how frustrating this can be. So I thought it would be nice to give everyone a little reminder on how to RSVP. Here we go:
Me: Hi Staci, this is Cassandra.
Staci: Hey Cass, what's up?
Me: I was just calling to let you know that I will be at Allie's birthday party but Scott will not. He has to work.
Staci: Okay, great. Thanks for letting me know.
Me: No problem. Talk to you later.
See how easy?! And now Staci is able to have more of an idea as to how much food to serve. It's really easy people...just pick up the phone or send an email and let the hostess know whether you will be attending or not.
This concludes our lesson for the day. Hope everyone took notes.
Cass
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Perhaps it should say vous deves répcndre, as long as it's RSVP I guess we give people the option :-)
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