Can I use Google Forms for wedding RSVPs?

You can — it's free and fine for casual events. Its weaknesses for weddings: one form for everyone (no per-household links), guests must type names perfectly for you to match them, no tracking of who hasn't replied, and it looks like a survey rather than an invitation.

What should an online RSVP be able to do?

Five things: a unique link per household, per-guest accept/decline and meal answers, a view of who hasn't opened or replied, CSV export for the caterer, and privacy (no guest data visible to search engines).

Do guests need to create an account to RSVP online?

They never should. Any method requiring guests to sign up or install an app will cost you replies — a plain link that opens in the browser is the standard to hold.

How to Collect Wedding RSVPs Online: Methods Compared

"Online RSVP" covers everything from a Google Form to a dedicated invitation platform. The honest comparison:

Google Forms (or any generic survey tool)

Good: free, quick to set up, collects into a spreadsheet.

Where it breaks for weddings:

One public form for all guests — you can't send personal links, so anyone with the URL can reply, and plus-one limits are unenforceable.
Matching depends on guests typing their names the way you expect ("Bob Smith" vs "Robert & fam").
No sense of who hasn't replied — the absent rows are invisible, and the absent rows are the whole problem.
It reads as a survey. For some weddings that's fine; for a formal one it undercuts the invitation.

Verdict: workable for a casual party; strained for a seated dinner with meals and plus-one rules.

Wedding-website RSVP pages

Good: the RSVP lives next to venue info and registry; big platforms are free.

Watch for: name-lookup RSVP ("type your name to find your invitation") mismatches and typos; public sites indexed by search engines with your date and venue visible; and RSVP features designed as an afterthought to the website builder.

Dedicated invitation links (one per household)

The mechanism matters more than the brand: each household gets its own private link that already knows who's in the party.

No name-typing, no lookup — the link is the identity.
Each named guest replies individually: attending, meal, notes. Plus-ones get named at reply time.
You see sent / opened / replied per household, so the chase list writes itself.
Export to CSV for the caterer and planner.

This is the structure to insist on regardless of which product provides it.

The checklist to hold any method against

Personal link per household (no public form, no name lookup)
Per-guest answers — RSVP and meal choice per named person
Not-yet-replied visibility (opened vs. not opened, ideally)
Export you can hand to a caterer
No guest accounts, no app installs
Guest data kept out of search engines

If your chosen method checks all six, the RSVPs will take care of themselves — and the week before your deadline will be a short list instead of a spreadsheet archaeology project.

Related guides

Wedding RSVP wording examples — what to actually write, card and digital
When should wedding RSVPs be due? — set the deadline that works
How to ask about dietary restrictions — the question to add to your RSVP