Sending Save the Dates to people that won't come to the wedding

Your wedding, you and fiance decide who is invited. It is not for anyone to decide or pressure you. If you don't plan to invite them, don't send a save the date. Your mother can meet up with them another time

You only send save the dates to those who you are inviting to the wedding. What your mom is suggesting is gift grabby and rude.

I still sent STDs and invites to those I knew probably couldn't attend, but I wanted them to know much we loved them and felt they were important for this moment. We had a small wedding though, even by pre-covid standards. I got the save the dates off of Zazzle during a sale and they were postcards, so it was pretty inexpensive

Definitely not- don’t send the STDs to those you know won’t come or you don’t want them there. Your mom is wrong. This is your wedding so it’s your vision!

I personally don't think you should send anything at all, but if you do, I think an engagement announcement would be more appropriate. Save the dates are only for people you plan to invite to the wedding.

Hi, I personally would recommend you just do an engagement announcement. I know that your mom is looking out and wants the best for you. What mom doesn’t know won’t hurt her 😉 lol. It will less awkward I think then because if you send them a Save the date and they never get it. Who’s to say plans don’t change for them and then they want to come, but they never got the invite. That’s just a hypothetical, but it saves yourself from a possible sticky situation later. Hope this helps♥️

If you want to send announcements, do it after the wedding is over when they are traditionally sent. An announcement while you are still engaged opens the floodgates for random people to feel they can ask you where their invite is.

Don’t send them anything if your only intent is to get gifts out of them. Ew.

View Quoted Comment That's not my intention 🤦🏾 they're my mother's guests, not mine.

View Quoted Comment True. Nowadays there's so many wedding stationary things. What happened to just announcing an engagement in the paper lol

View Quoted Comment Thank you for the advice! This was the route I was leanjng towards anyway 😂 I tried to make her understand that just because we grew up around her friends, they're still HER friends. She is paying for my wedding dress so that opened our budget to invite a few of her friends that I love, but spending money on stationary for people that won't come or I don't care to come is just stupid to me.

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Some papers still do it

View Quoted Comment They’re not guests if they’re not invited and they’re just getting a piece of mail so that they’ll send a gift.

View Quoted Comment Thank you!! Exactly!

Don't send a promise there is an invitation to come when there isn't, or when you know they can't come. Doing it to get gifts is horrible and your mom is out of line pushing you to do something to increase the gift count.

I think there’s a difference between someone you don’t want there at all versus someone you know won’t come, especially depending on their relationship to you and your fiancé. If it’s someone you know will probably decline because of ‘xyz’ but they are good friends or family either way, I think the save the date and invite should still go to them. Now if it’s someone you don’t want there at all then I don’t agree with sending them even the save the date because you are correct they would expect the invite come that time. I’m still a ways away from doing my own save the dates but I’ve been working through our guest list and it’s sometimes hard to make that distinction of who we actually want there because you have to expect anyone you invite to come, just in case. I’ve found it especially hard with distant family and our parents friends.

I believe save the dates are meant for people who will be receiving an invitation. If you plan to invite the people you are pretty sure won’t come then send them a std but expect that they could rsvp yes and then come to your wedding so make sure you are prepared budget and space wise for them if they rsvp yes. Anyone you don’t want to come don’t send them one. Std are a notice for people to save your date so they can come to your wedding, so sending one and then not sending an invite isn’t right. I would also put your foot down with your mother now, I didn’t with my mil and the guest list got out of control and it’s too late now to do too much about it and it’s also been a slight nightmare.. tell your mom it isn’t proper etiquette and you won’t be sending STDs to people who aren’t invited to your wedding.

You do not send those people a save the dates. That’s a very rude thing to do because they will be expecting an invitation to follow and will be offended when they don’t get one. If you want to share your wedding website that holds your wedding registry on Facebook or through text messages then you could do that and whoever wants to get you a gift that wasn’t invited will hav the opportunity then. But definitely do not send save the dates to someone you have no intentions of inviting, just very rude and can’t believe your mom suggested that!

Thanks to everyone with constructive replies! I figured you only send STD to people being invited! So that confusion is cleared up! I'm not doing announcements. I think they're a waste of time and told my mom she can tell whoever she wants but that doesn't mean they're invited to our wedding. We don't plan on doing a registry because we honestly have everything we need (house, appliances, linens, etc) so WE (fiance and I) are leaving it up to guests whether they want to give a gift or not. Honestly regret telling my mom anything because she doesn't have much of an idea how weddings work. My FMIL is the same way. If they keep trying to butt in then my fiance may actually get his wish to do a courthouse wedding instead!

Save the Dates implies you are inviting people to your wedding, because they are literally "saving the date" on their calendar to attend your event. Sending an STD without following up with an invitation is considered rude. You also don't invite people to your wedding just to get gifts/cash. This is in poor tastes as well. I feel like sending out some sort of announcement to people who you don't feel close with (and are not people you would invite to your wedding) just seems narcissistic and gift grabby.

Frankly, I would just leave these people out of the "stationary" if you don't want to invite them to your wedding. We received gifts from people (mostly my mom's friends) who were not invited to our wedding at all, some of whom I barely even know, because they were just excited for us and felt they wanted to give us something. We also didn't do a registry either, so most of the gifts we did get were checks/cash. I sent all of them a nice thank you card with a photo from our elopement.

It sounds like you are on the right path. There is no reason why your mom needs to hide the news from anyone. Getting married is a matter of public record, so plenty of people know about weddings they are not personally invited to. Your mom can tell who she wants, and you can invite who you want, and those lists of people can overlap entirely, a little bit, or not at all!