How early to send wedding invites?

Yes, there's such a thing as too early, and this definitely is. Invitations go out 6-8 weeks before the wedding. If you have lots of out of town guests, save the dates are basically a necessity, at least for them.

If you send invitations now, people are expected to RSVP. I'm not sure about you, but I don't know what my schedule is like for February of 2020 and I could not give you a definite answer. I could, but it could possibly change and your numbers would be entirely off. People can/will forget within 12 months. There are tons of issues with sending invites this early.

I am 6/6/20 we are sending save the dates July or August of this year and invites are going out no later then February 2020. We also have out of town guests but most of them will be coming by plane but you cant get a flight until 6 months prior so we figured January or February was good.

There's like a "invitation rule" as to when to send them out but I am not following it.

I say do what you feel. However with a full year to go, save the dates would be a good idea. They can be real simple. I used online free template and printed myself. They were really pretty.

Congratulations on your up coming wedding. My Coordinator told me to send out our invitations 5 weeks before if we have out of town guests and 3 weeks before if friend and family live in town.. our wedding is August 10th 2019. So we will be sending out our wedding invitations july 7 th and on our rsvp we asked for the rsvp be sent back by July 20th so hopefully people send them back we did send our rsvp cards in the same envelope with the invitation along with everything already being per stamped they just have to drop it in the mailbox 😀 congratulations again

My wedding is nov 24 and were sending invites sept 1. Everyone is traveling.

We sent our invites out 14 weeks before. Which is even a little longer than normal but we have head counts due a few weeks earlier than most. We sound out save the data in October because literally everybody will be traveling. So that's also why I felt ok sending invites early. Destination wedding etiquette says 10-12 week for invites.

I know you said you don't see the benefit of STDs, but that is what the benefit is: letting out of town guests know ahead of time so they can make arrangements. If you send the detailed invite too soon, you run the risk of them getting lost / forgotten.

This is exactly the point of save the dates. They allow out of town guests to have the information and make plans without the burden of having to give a solid rsvp. Any rsvp you get won’t be trustworthy bc so much can change in a year. I sent save the dates with my wedding website info so people can begin making plans. Several guests have already booked the hotel based on that.

We sent out save the dates 9 months in advance since we have a lot of out of towners. Our wedding is May 12th and we plan to send out our invitations by February 25th. That’s 11 weeks out, but our DOC said to send them out ASAP. They ask for final counts 18 days ahead of time and she said this is one of the things to try and get done early. Especially since not everyone RSVPs by the requested date, and follow up with a few guests is always necessary. We asked for people to respond by March 29th. Sending invitations out a year in advance is a little long. Save the dates allow people to coordinate and book flights and hotels and such.

View Quoted Comment I agree with this. A save the date a year in advance is perfectly fine (esp with lots of out of town guests). Our wedding is July 7 this year: our save the dates went out as soon as we have the venue and date (~sept) and our formal invites are going out in March

Save the dates are good so people know to reserve that date for you and can plan around it. Things like child care, flights, hotels, etc. Invites should go out 1-2 months before and save the dates 6-12 months before.

There is such a thing as too early. Invitations should be timed to arrive at people's homes 6-8 weeks ahead. Commercial Save The Dates are totally unnecessary, the cost and postage. Do what people did for the past century, and most people I know still do: Anyone who needs to know very early, like 6 months notice for travel, whom you are absolutely sure you are inviting, can be given date time place info over the phone, in another card ( birthday, holiday) or in a letter written to say hi! Just make sure that if you deliver by email, which is fine, you separately address the email for each person. Do not send a group message or email blast of any kind, or it will be deleted into a junk mail filter. And for the subject, write: Wedding of Jane Doe and Mark Wu, or whatever, so people can look back and find it easily. . .Save the Dates, and sending invitations early, have lots of pitfalls. Many couples end up having to call or wrote letters of apology to people already sent a Save, or a too early invitation. And people who reply early will change their mind, many of them, as the wedding gets closer and circumstances change.

Sending invitations early pretty much means people will put them aside and completely forget about them. If you want to be calling nearly everyone after the RSVP deadline, to remind them of the wedding, go ahead and send them. Just know that most people can't know their plans this far in advance. Sending them at the proper time forces people to check their schedules, and respond promptly.

Send save the dates to your VIPs. They don't have to be physical, mailed things. Call, email, text, or let them know in person. Whatever your typical means of communication is, use it.

If you send an invite this early, your guests may forget.

Now is way too early. I understand your reasoning and I know you feel like you can get another box checked off that to-do list but you still have a long time to go before that time comes. Usually invites don't go out until 3-4 months out. Maybe reach out to your out of town guests by phone and just make sure they are aware. If they feel they need a year to plan, they have their year and can plan accordingly.

Congrats on your big day!!

Thank you ladies!! I am going to schedule a consultation meeting with my day of coordinator and get some ideas on when to send what. The venue provided accommodation cards that most people send with the save the dates, so we might just send those and a note to our out of town people and an email to the more local VIP guests. I just hate to spend so much more on postage for a full set of save the dates.

Our wedding date is Sept 7th, 2019. We sent out our STD December and sending out our invitations 3 months before the wedding.

It's way too early to send out your invites. Typically save-the-dates are sent out ahead of time to allow people to start making arrangements for your wedding day. Can I ask why you don't see the benefit of sending them?

The majority of our guests are OOT, so we sent our STDs out mid-December for our late September wedding. Invites should go out 6-8 weeks before the actually wedding date.

View Quoted Comment STDs are a fairly new thing. We just see them as an added expense that doesn't really add enough value to warrant the cost.

I'm more concerned with my FHs family as I don't know many of them and I'm not counting on my FH to actually help with calling anyone. They're all coming from the New England and we're getting married in Central Florida.

I'm considering the idea of only mailing save the dates to his side and calling or emailing my side. We also see my family more often, so we can hand deliver save the dates (and eventually invitations) to them to save the cost of postage.

I did the complete reverse of standard invite etiquette, I sent mine out way early. because I refused to send save the dates. Most people I know lose the save the date anyways and are scrabbling to find the information. So I thought it was a waste of everyone's time and my resources. I just send e-vites about 6 months in advance. However, the formal reminder wasn't until 6-8 weeks out.

I have all my RSVP's except 3 in (and those three we know will be attending), so I can finalize all details with rental companies, caterer, etc.