Create Your Own Online RSVP Form using Google Forms

If you own a Google account and are getting married, you are in luck.

Let me first say, I really do love the changes Google has made from the old Google Docs to the new Google Drive.  Since when I lost all the Microsoft programs on my computer when I took it to OU's IT store (free services are great, but something always goes wrong) I began using Google Drive to do my homework assignments.  It is basically the same as Word and Excel, and nice that you can access your documents from any computer with internet.

This week I've learned another wonderful capability of Google through my work.  You can use Google Forms to create a webpage form that people can fill out.  The information that they put into the form in the neatly designed and aesthetic webpage then goes into a spreadsheet for your informational purposes.  At my job, they are using this form as event registration, which is how I learned about this nifty tool.

My thoughts then turned from work to home.  Why not create a similar form from which to keep track of RSVPs?  It really is super easy to create, and then you'll have all your guests names in a spreadsheet so that you can organize and use for whatever purposes you need at the wedding.

Sound complicated?  Yeah, I thought so too.

I promise, it really isn't.

Here's what you do.

Setting up your google form.

1.  Go to Google Drive.

2.  Click Create, and then click "Form" in the drop down menu.

3.  Your form will open, then you may add and change it as you like.

4.  Create two separate single line text entry questions.  Title one question "First" and the second question "Last."  Once it comes up on your web page, it will look like a normal First/Last entry form.  You will want to make this field required.

5.  Create a multiple choice question of the many sorts, and make a question asking if guests plan to attend with a yes or no (of course with sweetened wording).

6.  After you're done with this basics, you can move to other things.  If you are having a meal option, create a new question and you can have guests select the answers you input through a variety of ways.

7.  I wanted to add a fun aspect to our RSVP, so I added a question at the end to allow guests to give us advice for our lives together.  I suggest you refrain from making these types of questions required, as you don't want to scare any of your guests away from giving you a RSVP so your number will be as close to accurate as you can get.

8.  I forgot to add in the picture, but in the top left, when you click the "Theme" button, you can change how your webpage appears.

*I edited this page after I submitted information to the screen shots of the spreadsheet.  This information would be displayed in the spreadsheet now that the edits to the questions and form have been made.

One of the best parts of this, however, isn't how easy it is to create or the look of the webpage, but that all the information your guests submit will return to your Google Drive in a spreadsheet

The many useful things you can do with your spreadsheet.

Here you may easily edit the view-able webpage, or embed onto another site.

The spreadsheet is automatically downloaded into your main Google Drive folder, so you won't have to worry about creating any formulas to get the information to import correctly!

Hope some of you other future brides out there can find this as useful as I have!

If you ask why I went to the trouble to use this instead of using something already created for me with a website such as theKnot, I will tell you.  

With the Knot's "Our Wedding Website," you need to already have all of your guests information put into their system.  If a person who is not in your guest list on theKnot signs into your RSVP, it will tell them that it will email you - thus make them feel awkward.  (Maybe there is a setting to prevent this, I did not look, but on a trial and error basis I found out that it would give this notification).  I didn't like that, and I also didn't like the amount of work it took to put the names of all my guests into theKnot's system.  It was much easier to keep it in a spreadsheet where I can maneuver it by last name or whatever I need to do.  It was much faster to use this input method as well, because I didn't have to wait for theKnot's website to load.

I have found their free wedding website services very useful, but decided to use this tool for my RSVP instead because I feel it gives me more control on what I can do with the list of those who have sent their RSVP.  This route is much more flexible, and I can add the link to my wedding page and guests can go from there.


Just a little less than four months until our wedding!