How to collect meal choices for your wedding

The short answer: ask with the RSVP, per guest

Put the meal question inside the RSVP itself, ask it for each person by name, list every entrée option, and add one open line for allergies and dietary needs.

Four things make the difference. The options are named exactly as your caterer names them. The question is asked per person, because two people in the same household rarely want the same plate. Allergies get their own field, apart from preference. And you decide ahead of time what happens when someone leaves the question blank.

If your dinner is plated, your caterer will almost certainly ask for entrée counts and a list of allergies by a deadline. Collecting everything in one pass means you are not sending a second round of messages three weeks before the wedding.

When to ask: on the RSVP, not after

Ask for the meal choice at the moment a guest says yes, because that is when they are already looking at your invitation and ready to answer.

A follow-up survey sent later is easy to ignore for a simple reason: the guest has already mentally filed the invitation as done. You end up texting people one by one, and each reply has to be entered separately. Asking up front also gives you a clean deadline. If your RSVP date is, say, six weeks before the wedding, every meal choice is due on that date too, and your caterer’s count never depends on a stray message.

Before you write the question, get the final menu from your caterer. You cannot ask guests to choose between dishes that might change. If the menu is not settled, settle it first, and check the wedding planning checklist to see where the menu tasting and the RSVP date fall in your timeline.

Wording for the RSVP card and your wedding website

A good meal question names the person, lists the entrées in plain words, and says what to do if nothing on the list works.

The table below gives original wording for each place the question shows up. Change the dish names to match your menu and keep each line short. On a printed card you have a few lines, so use a checkbox list. On a website form you can use a dropdown, one per guest.

Write the names of the dishes the way the menu does, including what comes with them, such as “herb-roasted chicken with potatoes” rather than just “chicken.” Guests choose more confidently when they can picture the plate.

Per person, not per household

Ask for a meal choice for each individual guest, because a household of two can easily mean two different entrées.

On a printed card, that means one line per name: “Emma: chicken / salmon / vegetarian risotto” and then the same for the second person. If your invitation names only the household, add a line for each person you are inviting, including a plus-one if you are allowing one. A single line that says “Carter family: 4 chicken” invites mistakes.

In the app, replies on your published wedding website can be given by person or by household, with the meal choice included. Those answers fill your guest list, your meals, and your seating chart, so you do not retype them. Online replies on a published site are part of the one-time payment, not something the free trial alone covers.

Children are the case that most couples forget to plan for. Decide whether you will offer a kids’ meal and from what age, then say so in the question: “Kids 12 and under: kids’ plate (chicken tenders and fruit) or the adult entrées.” Mark the age on the guest so the count stays accurate. In the guest list each guest is tagged adult or child, which is where that count comes from.

Allergies and dietary needs: separate from preference

Give allergies and dietary needs their own line, because “I’d rather not eat fish” and “severe shellfish allergy” must never look the same on your caterer’s sheet.

The entrée choice answers “what do you want?” The allergy line answers “what could make you sick or what can’t you eat for religious or ethical reasons?” Keeping them in separate fields means the kitchen can read the second one without having to hunt through a sentence.

• Use an open line rather than a checklist of allergens, so guests can write exactly what applies to them.
• When a guest writes something vague, such as “no dairy,” ask what that covers before you pass it on.
• Copy the guest’s own words into your list. Do not tidy up a medical detail to make the sheet look cleaner.
• In the app’s meals section you record dietary needs and allergies on each guest next to their entrée, so they travel together.

When a guest skips the question

If a guest answers yes but leaves the meal blank, follow up with them yourself, and decide in advance which entrée goes down for anyone who never replies.

The app does not message your guests, so the follow-up is yours. You can see who has not answered yet, and you can enter a reply that reaches you by phone, text, or in person. A short text is enough: “Hi (first name), we’re sending our caterer the list on (date). Which entrée would you like: chicken, salmon, or vegetarian risotto?” Name the date, because a date gets answered faster than a vague request.

Set a cutoff after which you pick for them. Choose the most neutral dish on the menu, tell the guest which one you picked, and note it on your list as “assigned,” so you can fix it quickly if they correct you later. Telling a guest what you picked is kinder than asking a third time.

From replies to counts, and from counts to place cards

Once the replies are in, add them up by entrée, keep kids’ meals and vendor meals on their own lines, and send your caterer both the totals and a list by guest.

In the meals section of MyWedding Planner you set up your menus, record each guest’s choice, and keep dietary needs and allergies alongside it. The caterer view exports a CSV by guest or by table. That export is part of the one-time payment: during the trial it is refused. You send the file yourself, because the app does not send anything to your caterer.

Place cards are printable from the app. If your caterer wants a visible marker for each entrée, such as a small dot or a letter, add it by hand or ask the caterer whether they work from a table list instead. Our guide on the seating chart with meal choices for your caterer goes through what the sheet should contain and how to handle late changes.

The trial needs no card, and publishing your wedding website, with online replies, is included in the one-time payment of €69.