If you’re having a party, any party, you need to invite people to attend. Otherwise no one will know when and where to find the shindig. One question that comes up repeatedly with new party plan consultants is, “Who sends the invitations for home parties, the consultant or the hostess?”

The short answer is that there is no right or wrong answer, and there are many options where invitations are concerned.

First you should decide if you (or the hostess) are going to mail invitations via postcard or evites, text or email. If you opt to use snail mail to send postcards, you need to decide if you want to supply the postage or if the hostess will be responsible for that.

Some consultants don’t mind mailing them on their dime, and will write it off as a business expense. Some even go so far as to request a mailing list from the hostess, and then the consultant fills them out and mails them. Others simply give blank invitations to the hostess and have her mail them.

Thanks to the ease and convenience of email, many hostesses just send email or text invitations. It’s also much easier for the recipients to delete an email or text; and then there is nothing tangible to stick on the refrigerator. Of course the countermeasure to that is that they may put the event electronically on their calendar.

You see, there’s really no set way to invite guests to a party. You may choose to use a combination of snail mail and electronic mediums. More important than how you send them, is to whom and when.

As far as whom to invite – always encourage the hostess to over-invite. Plan on maybe a 10% attendance rate. So if she invites 100 people, she may get 10 people at her party. Sure there are always exceptions to every rule. She may get one person or she may get 42 with that same 100 invitations; but as a guide plan on 10%.

Two weeks advance notice is a good time for the initial invitation. Then, within 48-72 hours make reminder calls. Encourage the hostess to pick up the phone to contact those she invited, it’s been proven to be much more effective. She should call those who said they were coming, just as a reminder. Those who have not RSVP’d should also get a phone call to see if they are going to make it to her party, or if not, to alert them they can place an order online or with her over the phone.

Don’t get too hung up on how to send invitations. The follow-up and reminders are much more vital to the success of the hostess’s party than any minor details surrounding the initial home party invitation distribution.