Addressing the Group

Source

Way back in April I sent out my save the dates as a way to start collecting addresses from our guests. I'll update you on the process and our progress.  Some guests have informed us that they are unable to attend (which is good to know earlier rather than later) but I still want their address so I can send them an invite. Recently I sent out a little more encouragement via email. 

It went like this:

<<<>>>>

K & Mr. H would love to invite you to their wedding. There's just one tiny problem. They don't have your mailing address. ::gasp::

Fear not! You can remedy this situation by clicking on the link below.
If you're still unsure about why you have received this email, then perhaps you are more familiar with their parents, {Insert Parents' names here}

If you're curious about the wild and crazy couple, check out their wedding website: www.whatwedding.com

Brief cautionary note: There's music on the website so adjust your speakers accordingly.

As always, K & Mr. H wish you a great today and an even better tomorrow!

<<<>>>>

After that push our response rate is now at a whopping 78 %. To be fair, there are a few people who I didn't have email addresses for so they couldn't technically respond. Ha!

I've been extolling the virtues of Wedding Wire but let me let you in on some of the quirks of this tool.

This is what it looks like when you click on a household. The right side lists the names of the guests for that household.

If you don't know the name of their guest put "Guest Household last name" That way when they use the RSVP tool and put their last name in they can see they have a plus one option.

When your guest clicks on the "update your address" link in the email, the input populates this form.

Here's the quirk: You'll need to go through each of your households to format the addresses. Some guests type in all lowercase. Some put their names in the first field for the address. You'll need to go through each one to format it how you want.

Not too time consuming really. I put some music on and did it in less than an hour.

The other quirk is what you get when you export this data. Remember when I said some guests put their names in the first field? 

Well good thing they did because when I exported the data, it only came with addresses. So I went back and put names in the first address field and put the street address on the same line as any apartment numbers.

Now keep in mind I could be doing this all wrong and there really is an easier way. Alas, I haven't found it yet.

I'm still happy with Wedding Wire and now I'm even closer to getting my invitations done.

Woot! Woot!