How to Create an RSVP Form in WordPress (Easy)

If you’ve ever tried collecting RSVPs through regular email, you know how quickly it can turn into complete chaos. Duplicate responses, missed messages, and zero organization; it’s enough to make anyone want to cancel their event before it even starts.

You end up spending more time managing the guest list than actually planning the fun stuff.

We totally get it. 🙌

At WPBeginner, we’ve looked into the easiest ways to create and manage RSVP forms in WordPress – no coding needed.

We use WPForms ourselves across our own site and have tested Sugar Calendar extensively, and in this guide, we’ll show you how to create an RSVP form in WordPress, using both methods.

Why Create an RSVP Form in WordPress?

An RSVP form helps you collect responses in one place, stay organized, and avoid the chaos of tracking replies from different channels.

Without a form, guests might respond by email, text, phone call, or in person. This makes it hard to track who’s actually attending and easy to overlook someone’s reply.

A WordPress RSVP form ensures everyone replies the same way, and all responses are saved directly in your admin dashboard.

This saves you hours of back-and-forth and makes it easier to manage your guest list, special requests, and even follow-ups.

That being said, let’s go over the steps for how to create an RSVP form in WordPress. Here’s a quick overview of all the things we’ll cover in this guide:

Method 1: How to Create an RSVP Form with WPForms (Recommended)

To create a custom RSVP form with ease, you’ll need a form builder. We recommend using WPForms, as it’s the best WordPress contact form on the market. Plus, it’s beginner-friendly and comes with all the features you need.

At WPBeginner, we’re big fans of WPForms. We use it to build a lot of forms, including our contact form and annual readers’ survey. Check out our complete WPForms review to learn more about the plugin.

First, let’s install and activate the WPForms plugin for WordPress. If you need help, you can see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once the plugin is activated, you can start creating your RSVP form.

Creating Your RSVP Form in WordPress

To create an RSVP form, go to WPForms » Add New in your WordPress dashboard.

Next, you can enter a name for your form to get started.

This is for your reference only, but we recommend using a clear, descriptive name for easier organization.

Below this on the page, you will choose how to build your form – using a blank canvas, an AI-powered form builder, or a pre-made template.

If you want to use WPForms AI, all you need to do is add a short prompt in plain English. The tool will then generate the form for you in just a few seconds.

If you are using Pro, then you have a lot of RSVP form templates to choose from, including the Party Invitation RSVP Form.

If you are using the free version, you can start with the Simple Contact Form template and then add the fields you need manually.

Once you have selected your template, hover over it and click the ‘Use Template’ button.

WPForms will open it in the drag-and-drop form builder.

Here, you can change anything you like about the form.

Simply click on the part of the form you want to change and then edit it on the left-hand side.

For instance, you can click on the ‘Name’ field to change the format to ‘Simple.’ This combines the ‘First’ and ‘Last name’ fields into a single box, which looks much better on mobile devices.

You can also add a ‘Number Slider’ field labeled ‘Total Guests’ to account for family members.

What if you want to add extra options to the ‘Will you be attending’ field?

Just click on it, then use the (+) button to add more choices.

It’s also easy to add more fields to the form.

Simply use the ‘Add Fields’ tab to drag and drop more fields onto your form.

We have added a ‘Single Line Text’ field.

You can use this to ask about allergies and dietary requirements, for example, and consider using Smart Conditional Logic to only show this field if a guest confirms attendance.

Once you’re happy with how your WordPress form looks, you can move on to configure the form’s notifications.

But don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button at the top of the screen first.

Configuring RSVP Forms Notifications

Now, you can go to the Settings » Notifications page for your form.

This lets you control where the RSVPs are sent.

Simply change the ‘Send To Email Address’ to the email address you want to use.

By default, the plugin sends notifications to {admin_email}, which is the email address of your WordPress administrator. If you aren’t sure which email that is, simply delete that tag and type in the specific email address where you want to receive RSVPs.

If you want RSVPs to go to more than one person, follow our instructions to create a form with multiple recipients.

You can also change other settings here, such as the subject line of the emails.

Next, you may want to change the message that guests will see after submitting the form. To do this, click on the Confirmations tab. Simply delete the existing message and type in the message you want to use instead.

If you prefer, you can also choose to redirect guests to a different page instead of showing a message. This is useful if you’ve created a custom thank-you page or want to send them to another resource, like an event schedule or location map.

Again, don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button before exiting your form.

Adding Your RSVP Form to a Page in WordPress

It’s easy to embed your RSVP form into any post or page on your website. You can even add it to your sidebar using the WPForms block or widget.

To add the form to your WordPress site, go ahead and click the ‘Embed’ button next to ‘Save.’ On the popup that appears, you can select to add it to an existing page or a new one.

For this tutorial, let’s create a new page for the form.

On the next popup, you can enter the new page name and then click the ‘Let’s Go!’ button.

This will open the WordPress block editor.

To add your form, simply click the + icon to add a new block. Then, search for the WPForms block.

Once you have added that block to your page, you need to select your RSVP form.

Simply click on ‘Select a Form’, then select your form from the dropdown list.

Finally, go ahead and publish or preview your page to see your form on your website.

This is how it looks on our demo website:

For more details, you can see our guide on how to embed WordPress forms.

Checking Your Guest List in WordPress

Once people have had a chance to RSVP, you will want to construct a guest list.

Luckily, WPForms makes this process quick and easy for you. Instead of going through all the notification emails, it’s easy to download the guest list from WordPress.

To access entries, go to WPForms » All Forms in your WordPress admin area.

You will see a list of all the forms on your WordPress website.

Go ahead and click on the name of your form at the bottom of this page.

You will now see a table that summarizes the RSVPs.

To download the whole guest list, click the ‘Export All (CSV)’ button.

This will take you to the Export page.

Here, WPForms will ask you to confirm which fields you want to include. By default, all fields are checked, but you can customize them to suit your needs.

Next, scroll down to the bottom of this page and click the ‘Download Export File’ button.

It will now download the form entries to your computer as a CSV file. You can open it in Excel or any spreadsheet program like Google Spreadsheet.

Method 2: How to Create an RSVP Form Using Sugar Calendar (For Event Calendars)

If you host events on a regular basis, Sugar Calendar is a great option for collecting RSVPs.

It’s one of the best event management plugins for WordPress, and it comes with everything you need to create event calendars, manage attendees, set up recurring events, and even sell tickets online.

At WPBeginner, we’ve tested Sugar Calendar extensively. Check out our complete Sugar Calendar review to see everything it can do.

To get started, you need to install and activate the Sugar Calendar plugin. If you need help, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to Events » Addons from the WordPress dashboard. Then, find the RSVP addon in the list and click the ‘Install Addon’ button.

Sugar Calendar will install and activate it for you automatically.

Creating an Events Calendar

Once you’ve set up Sugar Calendar, you’re ready to create a new calendar.

Simply go to Events » Calendars from the admin dashboard and click the ‘+ Add Calendar’ button.

On the next page, enter a name for your calendar at the top.

The slug will be generated automatically from the name, so you don’t need to fill that in.

You can also choose a parent calendar (which is useful if you want to group related calendars together), add a description, and select a color to differentiate different calendars.

Once you’re happy with your settings, simply click the ‘Add New Calendar’ button to save it.

Creating an Event and Enabling RSVP

With your calendar ready, the next step is to create an event and turn on RSVP collection.

Go to Events » Events from the WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Add New Event’ button.

From here, enter a name for your event at the top of the screen.

Then, set the start and end date, as well as the time, under the ‘Duration’ tab.

If your event occurs on a regular basis, then you can also click on the ‘Recurrence’ tab and select when the event will repeat. For more details, see our tutorial on how to show recurring events in WordPress.

Next, click the ‘RSVP’ tab and toggle the RSVP option to the ON position.

After turning RSVP on, there are other RSVP settings you can configure.

For example, if you’d like to cap attendance, toggle the ‘Limit Capacity’ switch to ON and enter the maximum number of guests in the ‘Capacity’ field.

You can also allow guests to bring extra people by entering a number in the ‘Additional Attendees’ field. Note that each additional guest counts toward your total capacity.

There are other options to configure as well. For example, you can toggle ‘Show Attendee List’ to ON if you want confirmed guests to appear publicly on the event page, which is a great form of social proof that encourages people to attend.

In addition, you can enable ‘Allow “Not Going”‘ so visitors can also decline your RSVP, which helps you get a more accurate headcount.

Once you’ve configured your settings, you need to select the calendar where your upcoming event will be shown.

After that, go ahead and click the ‘Publish’ button.

Displaying the Calendar and RSVP Form on Your Site

With your calendar create and the event published, you can now display it on any page of your WordPress site.

To start, create a new page or edit the existing page where you’d like to show your events. From there, click the ‘+’ icon in the block editor, and search for Sugar Calendar.

You’ll find two blocks: ‘Events Calendar’ for a full calendar view and ‘Events List’ for a simple list layout. Select whichever works best for your needs and publish the page.

Now, when visitors click through to your event’s detail page, they’ll see a ‘Going’ button. If you enabled the ‘Allow “Not Going”‘ option, they’ll also see a button to decline.

Clicking on either button opens a short form where they can fill in their details and submit their RSVP.

Here’s what it looks like on our test site:

Viewing and Managing RSVPs

Once RSVPs start coming in, you can manage all of them from one place in your dashboard.

Simply go to Sugar Calendar » RSVP to see a full list of attendees, their email addresses, RSVP status, and submission time.

You can use the search field to find a specific guest by name, or use the event filter to narrow the list to a single event.

If a guest didn’t RSVP online, you can add them manually by clicking the ‘Add New Attendee’ button and filling in their details.

You can also click the ‘Export List’ button to download all responses as a CSV file.

FAQs: Creating an RSVP Form in WordPress

Let’s explore some of the most common questions we hear about creating RSVP forms.

What is the best WordPress RSVP form plugin?

We recommend WPForms as the best plugin for creating RSVP forms. The Pro version includes ready-made templates that make setup quick and easy. It also lets you manage all your guest responses directly in the WordPress dashboard.

For those who need a full event management solution with built-in RSVP support, Sugar Calendar is worth considering as well.

Can I create an RSVP form in WordPress for free?

Yes, you can. The free version, WPForms Lite, allows you to build a basic RSVP form from scratch. However, you’ll miss out on the pre-built templates and advanced features like exporting your guest list, which saves a lot of time.

How do I close RSVPs after a certain date or number of guests?

With WPForms Pro, you can easily set form restrictions. In the form settings, you can schedule a closing date for your form or limit the total number of entries to cap your guest list automatically.

When using Sugar Calendar, you can cap attendance by enabling the ‘Limit Capacity’ option directly on your event.

Can I collect payments with my RSVP form?

Absolutely. WPForms Lite allows you to accept Stripe, Square, and PayPal payments (with transaction fees). You only need to drag the payment field onto your form in the editor. If you have WPForms Pro, it removes the additional transaction fees.

With Sugar Calendar, you can sell tickets to your events by enabling the Tickets tab on your event, setting a ticket price, and connecting your Stripe account.

Expert Guides on Using WordPress to Organize Events

We hope this article helped you learn how to create an RSVP form in WordPress. You might also want to see some other guides related to using WordPress to organize events:

• How to Host a Virtual Event in WordPress
• How to Create an Event Registration Page in WordPress
• How to Create a Simple Event Calendar with Sugar Calendar
• How to Add Google Calendar Events From Your WordPress Contact Form
• Best WordPress Event Plugins Compared

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