Destination wedding save the dates &invites

Looking for advice from those who had a destination or out of state wedding. When did y’all send save the dates and invites/rsvps? Do you wish you sent them earlier or later? Our venue is on Mackinac island, Michigan and guests will have to stay on the island at our venue or rent a room at the condos next door. No cars are allowed on the island so it’s just horse drawn buggys to get around and you have to take a ferry to get to the island. So people will either drive or fly up from Texas (my family and where we live) or drive in from Michigan (his family). There is a limited number of rooms so we will urge people to book their accommodations early to make sure they get a room close by!


We plan on traveling up in July 2021 to see the venue and officially book the date a year out (August 2022) and I’d like to get save the dates out ASAP so people can start making arrangements if they want to. It’ll be about 12 months out for the save the dates. Is that too early? Or good for a destination type wedding?
And then about how many months in advance should we send the invitations and make the rsvps due? It’s looking like the final head counts and monies due will be about a month in advance so we will need the rsvps by then. I know we should avoid the holidays so sending them at least in January 2022 or later would be 8 months in advance.
Any recommendations or advice? Thank you!!