Understanding main event attendance and events

Learn how the main event attendance setting affects additional events, why guests who decline the main event can't RSVP to other events, and how to make all events independent by disabling main event attendance.

When you add events to your RSVP form, they work together with the main event attendance step. Understanding this relationship is key to setting up your RSVP the way you want it.

Plan requirement: Standard or Pro plan

How main event attendance works

By default, your RSVP form has a built-in attendance step that asks guests "Will you be attending our wedding?" This is the main event attendance and it appears before any additional events you create.

You can see this in RSVP > Events where the first card is labeled Our wedding with the description Main event. When it's active, it shows a Collecting attendance indicator.

The main event attendance step has two important behaviors:

  1. It acts as a gateway. Guests must confirm they are "Attending" before they can see and RSVP to additional events.
  2. It applies to all guests. Unlike additional events, the main event does not have a guest list restriction option. Every guest on your list is asked whether they are attending.

What happens when a guest declines the main event

When a guest selects "Not attending" on the main event attendance step:

  • Their status is set to Regretfully declined
  • All their additional event responses are automatically declined
  • They skip the events step entirely and go straight to the confirmation page
  • They cannot go back and RSVP to individual events

This means that if a guest can't attend your ceremony but wants to come to the reception or after-party, they have no way to indicate this when main event attendance is enabled.

When this becomes a problem

The default behavior works well for traditional weddings where guests either come to everything or nothing. But it doesn't work for these common scenarios:

Guests want to attend some events but not others

Multi-day weddings, destination weddings, and celebrations with multiple separate events often have guests who can attend some parts but not others. With main event attendance enabled, a guest who declines the main event is automatically declined from everything.

You want an exclusive guest list for the ceremony

Additional events have the option to use an Exclusive guest list (where you hand-pick which guests are invited). But the main event attendance step doesn't have this option. It always applies to all guests. This is a problem if your ceremony has a smaller guest list than your reception.

You want events to be completely independent

Some couples want each event to stand on its own, with no dependency between them. The default setup doesn't allow this because the main event attendance controls access to everything else.

The solution: disable main event attendance and use events instead

The fix for all of these scenarios is to:

  1. Add your ceremony (or main event) as a new event
  2. Disable the main event attendance step

This makes every event independent. Guests can RSVP to each event separately, regardless of their response to other events.

Step-by-step setup

Step 1: Add your main event as a new event

  1. Go to RSVP > Events
  2. Click Add event
  3. Enter the event name (e.g., "Ceremony", "Wedding Ceremony")
  4. Add the date, time, venue, and address
  5. Choose whether this event is for all guests or an exclusive guest list
  6. Click Save event

Step 2: Disable main event attendance

  1. Go to RSVP > Events
  2. Click the Our wedding card (the main event)
  3. Uncheck Collect attendance from guests
  4. Click Save changes

The main event card will now appear dimmed to indicate it's no longer collecting attendance.

Step 3: Add your other events (if you haven't already)

Add each event that needs a separate RSVP. For each one, you can choose:

  • For all guests - Every guest sees this event in their RSVP form
  • Exclusive guest list - Only the guests you select will see this event

What changes for guests

With main event attendance disabled, the RSVP flow changes:

  • Guests skip the "Will you be attending our wedding?" step
  • They go directly to the events page where all their events are listed
  • They select "Attending" or "Not attending" for each event independently
  • Declining one event has no effect on other events
  • Their overall guest status is determined by their event responses (if they accept at least one event, they are marked as "Confirmed")

Example setups

Destination wedding with welcome dinner and ceremony

You want all guests invited to both, but some may only attend one:

  1. Add event: Welcome Dinner (for all guests)
  2. Add event: Wedding Ceremony (for all guests)
  3. Disable main event attendance

Guests can attend just the dinner, just the ceremony, or both.

Small ceremony, large reception

Your ceremony is intimate (50 people) but the reception is for everyone (150 people):

  1. Add event: Ceremony (exclusive guest list, select 50 guests)
  2. Add event: Reception (for all guests)
  3. Disable main event attendance

Only the 50 selected guests see the ceremony on their RSVP form. Everyone sees the reception.

Multi-day celebration

A weekend wedding with several events where guests pick and choose:

  1. Add event: Friday Welcome Party (for all guests)
  2. Add event: Saturday Ceremony (for all guests)
  3. Add event: Saturday Reception (for all guests)
  4. Add event: Sunday Brunch (exclusive guest list)
  5. Disable main event attendance

Each event stands alone. Guests respond to each one they're invited to.

Tips

Re-create your ceremony as an event. When you disable main event attendance, the built-in "Will you be attending our wedding?" question disappears. Make sure you've added your ceremony as a separate event so guests can still RSVP to it.

Use exclusive guest lists where needed. Once you're using events instead of main event attendance, you can set any event to have an exclusive guest list. This gives you full control over who is invited to what.

Check the required setting. Each event can be set to require a response. If you want to make sure guests respond to a specific event, mark it as required.

Guest status is derived from events. When main event attendance is disabled, a guest's overall status (Confirmed, Regretfully declined, Waiting for RSVP) is based on their event responses. If they accept at least one event, they show as Confirmed.

Plus-ones and children still work. If you have plus-ones or children enabled, the attendance step still appears for those options. The plus-one and children options work independently from the main event attendance setting.

Related articles