
Show HN: Online RSVP's Made Easy - johnsnowtho
https://www.rsvpkeeper.com/
======
johnsnowtho
I'm the creator of RSVP Keeper.

I recently got married and had to organize RSVP's with my wife. A full-stack
developer by trade, I began researching online options, figuring there would
be a go-to app for us to use.

Long story short - I didn't find something that was:

Pretty to look at. Simple to setup as a host. Easy to fill out as a guest.
Priced in an easy to reason way.

After licking the last envelope, I decided to create an online RSVP app for
the modern host. I did a bunch of research - polling my friends and family,
studying the needs of a host, and rethinking the RSVP process itself.

I think that RSVP's are still a market where most hosts, for events like
weddings or showers, are sending out paper invites because of the tried and
true nature of it. I feel like the ubiquity internet hasn't fully saturated
this market yet.

If you have any feedback please let me know, and if you think by the looks of
it that you _may_ or _may not_ be inclined to use RSVP Keeper for your next
event, I'd love to know why. Thank you.

~~~
brudgers
My take is that the effort required for paper RSVP's reflects a context that
the people involved care deeply enough to go through the formalities. Where
all the social conventions are not important, there's Facebook events which
have broader reach than a bespoke tool; are easier to use because the scale of
resources behind their development; and have much less formality.

To put it another way, an RSVP tool occupies a niche where the host does not
follow convention for their own convenience but requires guests to follow
convention in an unconventional and perhaps inconvenient way...setting up
logins, filling out forms etc.

I'm already married, so I doubt I would use it. That's the problem with
solving wedding problems...brides and grooms don't create repeat business.

Good luck.

~~~
johnsnowtho
Yea I think you're exactly right.

There's this formality to RSVP's that I took very seriously in my development.

Little things like allowing guests to be reordered in the guest list - when I
first showed that to my friends, it didn't seem like a big deal, but once I
explained that certain guests could be offended by being at the bottom of the
guest list (considering they're only at the bottom because of the way the host
entered them), it made sense to those I was showing.

Another big thing was the ease of use in filling in the form for the guests.
In my [example RSVP
page]([https://www.rsvpkeeper.com/rsvp/08c084c7-ecf2-4aed-8cfc-4fe6...](https://www.rsvpkeeper.com/rsvp/08c084c7-ecf2-4aed-8cfc-4fe612766606))
you can see how that works if you haven't already visited it.

I really focused on making it as simple and clean as possible. I don't even
allow theming just yet because I felt that would just distract and confuse the
guest filling out their form. This is all done to the benefit of the host of
course - so they can capture the highest number of RSVP's for their event.

Thanks for your insight and comments.

------
athriren
This looks pretty slick. I have saved it for future use when I need RSVPs!

~~~
johnsnowtho
Thank you! If you have any feedback after you get to use it I'd love to hear
it. Thank you!

