Early Invitation Pros and Cons?

Since you are asking as an etiquette matter, wedding invitations should come no more than 6-8 weeks in advance regardless of location. Please do not think of sending wedding invitations 5-11 months early. March or April for a September wedding is far too early, let alone the October before a September wedding. The entire point of the STDs are so that people have a heads up. Between that and a wedding website with accomodation and travel information, your Canadian guests will have plenty of information and lead time.

I'm not sure what the timing of your bridal shower has to do with it.

The down side is that people will lose or forget all about your wedding invitation or side eye that they were sent out that early.

We went our STDs out a year early because 100% of our guests would be traveling. You can definitely do that. But I wouldn’t send out invites earlier than 2 months

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Thanks for the advice!

Everyone is going to hate me on here because I’ve gotten so much backlash from other brides about this, but send your Save The Dates as soon as you can so they can know the date ahead of time. Then send your invites whenever you want since those people should have already decided from the STDs if they can go or not. I did STD about 10 months before the wedding and sent out my invitations about 6 months before and got all my replies in 4 months before the wedding which let me get my numbers in to my caterer and help me plan the rest including time to invite others from my B list. In my opinion, people either commit or they don’t and if they can’t decide either way that’s on them and you shouldn’t have to wait around for them. Sending all my items early has given me a peace of mind during the entire process!

I think I would do save the dates. Also, who is hosting your bridal shower? I would suggest to them for them to send a save the date as well so people know when the bridal shower will be!

Unpopular opinion.... we skipped the save the dates and sent our invites 10 months before the wedding. Not only does everyone have to travel, but accommodations on our small tourist-destination island fill up EARLY (as in, if you wanted to come to the wedding but you didn't book a room 6 months in advance, you might be out of luck). We explained on the website our reasoning for the nontraditional timeline, but we just really felt we needed to give people time to decide if they could take the time, afford/save up for the trip, and do the coordination of all the travel stuff. We got 90% of our RSVPs by several months before the wedding and if anyone was offended by the timing, they haven't made a big deal of it. We did have to reach out directly to a few people, but it seems like that's the norm regardless of your invite timing.

All that being said, I think an early STD and a thorough travel section on the website could essentially achieve the same thing.

Sending invitations that early might give people the impression that you're B-listing. Also many people won't know until closer to the date if they can make it for sure or not. You're likely to get a lot of "maybe" responses.

I would say forgo the STD and just send the invites early in October! We got married on Memorial Day Weekend so I sent out our Save the Dates almost a year in advance because I knew people plan vacations around then. We sent our formal invitations around January/February (because we had a B-List of guests that we wanted to invite if A-Listers said no). I don't think anyone knew we had other invite lists but even if they did I don't care - and if someone cares about that then should they really be at your wedding??? My Bridal shower was in April so the bridal shower invites got sent out right after wedding invites. No matter when you send out invitations you will have some people "forget" to RSVP and will have to reach out to them. I reached out to guests around a week before the RSVP date just as a reminder to RSVP. That triggered most people to RSVP and then the handfull of people who I still didn't hear from I gave a call to about a week after the RSVP deadline. Every person will have a different opinion on this but just do what feels right to you because there is no right or wrong way to do this. It's YOUR special day and people will always have opinions on things but that's what the delete button or trash can is for Congrats & Good Luck! Also, anyone who wants to be there will prioritize appropriately no matter when you send your info out!