My D just did an RSVP via computer for a wedding. After she entered her information she was prompted to add anyone else attending. She asked me if that meant she could add a date. I told her absolutely not unless her invitation had a plus one on her invitation, which it didn’t. But the wording was confusing and I can see how easy it would be to assume you were allowed to. So be sure that any computer response you use is very clear if you don’t want people just inviting others (or more than they’ll try to do anyway).
My daughter mailed out paper invites but it includes a weblink to rsvp (and to also read their story and see pics, etc). We will see how this goes. Her siblings did this also and it worked well. We still had to track down a few people, but we would have had to track them down if we had paper rsvp cards also.
^^^My D who just got married did the same, @bookreader.
It seems to me that RSVP cards that need to be mailed back are going the way of landline phones - headed for extinction.
Personally I love the idea of a website because the couple can put so much info there. Their story, pictures, registry info, parking details, etc…
Thanks everyone for the thoughts and advice on online invitations/RSVP’s. They will definitely have a website with more information than you’d want to put into an invitation. And I know we’ll have to follow up on some slacker non-RSVPer’s.
@doschicos, I was actually considering the creature thing. I feel like kicking them is too mean for a wedding – but having some cute stuffed animal rodents for them to use as microphones is not out of the picture!
@walkinghome, I’ve never heard of anyone else doing a mother-daughter dance either. It’s important to D as she is a dancer and dancing is a big part of her emotional life. We’ll be doing a slow veil piece (I’m not much of a fast dancer either!) The choreographer is going to include parts where D does more complicated moves that are complementary to my basic ones. I’m nervous but looking forward to it nonetheless!
@snoozn Yeah, you have to be careful about the “kicking creatures” thing. You might have some PETA guests. 
@BunsenBurner I won’t have to worry about losing my daughter’s wedding dress, as it hasn’t made it to the cleaners yet 
Wedding was 5 weeks ago and the dress, as well as my dress, is still hanging in my closet. I know they need to make it to the cleaners, but the thought was to research which would be the best bang for the bucks. I know women that have almost paid as much for the cleaning as the dress!!
My wedding dress is hanging in a hall closet. I think it still has some mud on it from 1985. 
Mine is preserved in a box and has moved from house to house, 14 so far. I looked at it a couple of months ago and it seems to have yellowed where it is touching the plastic. I also have my mother’s. The plan was to cut hers up and make each of the six of us something, but we shall see.
I went to a charity tea last spring that was a wedding dress show. It was at a church, put on by the Ladies Aux and the Youth Group, and it was really nice. They gathered about 20 dresses ‘through the year’ and the kids modeled 12 of them and the others were just displayed. As they modeled, the story of the dress was read. Some were made by the bride or family, how the money was earned for the dress, the weather, the flowers.
I’ve seen a lot of those ‘preserved’ dresses for sale at the thrift store because the preserving didn’t work so well. My mother used to work at a dry cleaners and she said they always had a bunch of dresses that had been brought in and never picked up.
My friend has her dress preserved and I don’t really get it. She has no children to pass it on to, has only nephews, she is very short so her dress won’t fit many, it was rather plain. I don’t get what she’s saving it for.
I never had mine cleaned or “preserved”. It got hung back into the white Nordstrom’s zipper case it came home in and hung in various closets my parents lived in until I brought it back to my house last year. My Ds dressed up in it for silly pictures over the years but quite frankly I don’t think I ever saw any dirt or stains except a bit along the train. My older D was going to wear my mother’s gown, so I have it as well. But that’s a different story…
I have mine and my Mothers. More useful than the gown, was some silk and lace left over from my Mom’s dress. She had saved it in a box and moved it many times. My daughter took a bit of the material and had them made into a bow attached to hand made shoes that she’ll wear at the wedding. She has a friend who hand makes wedding shoes, and with that we’ve got something old and something new in one item!
For anyone who wants to look at some pretty white dresses… The 2017 Disney collection is here.
https://www.yahoo.com/style/disney-2017-wedding-dress-collection-175700527.html
A friends son was set to get married yesterday on an island hit by hurricane Matthew. I can’t imagine the chaos and uncertainty they are dealing with now.
I can now officially join this thread. My S proposed to his long time GF last week. We are thrilled as we already feel like she is a member of the family. I can see I am going to need to remind myself that I’m the Mom of the groom and should not offer to many of my opinions
H thinks we should reach out to her Mom via a phone call. We have met her once before. What have others done?
@mom60 Congrats!
@mom60, congrats! Definitely reach out, but instead of a call, write her parents a note expressing how delighted you are, what a wonderful job her parents did raising her, etc. And if practical, invite them to your home for a celebratory dinner (avoids check-wrangling).
I sent an e-mail. The other mother deleted it without reading it because my name was unfamiliar. I like @yauponredux’s idea of using snail mail. It’s what I should have done.
Great idea about sending a card. Her Mom lives 7 hours from us so no celebration dinner anytime soon.