Common courtesy died with common sense

This weekend at a birthday party, some of the guests were complaining about the lack of party courtesy here in Portland. I don't know if the epidemic has spread past the Pacific Northwest, but here in Oregon, getting people to RSVP is like pulling teeth. We've hosted a couple of parties where guests just showed up and we had to scramble to accomodate them with extra food and drinks. Don't get me wrong, we were happy to have them there, but we would have liked to have known about it beforehand so we could adequately feed them. The coup de grâce of this problem was our wedding reception, where almost 100 extra guests showed up! Fortunately the hotel's kitchen was able to throw together some stuff at the last minute, but that was just a fortunate coincidence.

The reason this is fresh in my mind is that we're throwing a baby shower for some friends and the RSVPs are coming in slow--and we KNOW lots of people are planning on showing. I had an idea, and I'd like to float this out on the Internets to get their feedback--I am tempted to not put our address on the e-vite, so people would HAVE to RSVP to find out where the party is being held. PLUS, the shower honorees get the benefit of pouring guilt on the people who didn't make it because they hadn't RSVP'd and therefore didn't know where to go. It's a win-win in my book!