Hey Doug and thanks for the kind words! I really hope our plugins are a great fit for your site. 🙂
Great questions. It is possible to have someone simply RSVP for an event using our Event Tickets plugin (free). You can also use Event Tickets without The Events Calendar and accept RSVPs on any page or post.
The will, however, still trigger an email sent to the person who is completing the RSVP. It is possible to disable the email from sending, but it will take a little bit of custom development to make it happen. Just want to throw that out there so you know.
If you use Event Tickets Plus with Event Tickets, then you can collect additional information about your guests as well as they register. I don’t have a live example of a registration form to share at the moment, but this post here walks through how they are set up with nice screenshots that should give you a clear idea of how they work.
Does this help answer your questions? Please let me know. 🙂
Cheers!
Geoff