Timeline of Save the Dates and Invitations?

What do you mean when you say first round of invitations? I think sending out you STDs in June is great - maybe save the invitations for October? That way your guests have some time to receive the STD and from what I understand most invitations are sent out three months before the wedding with an RSVP a month before, since a lot of people don’t know what their work schedules can look like so far in advance. But if you’re doing a destination wedding, then August would be perfect for invitations. At the end of the day you know your guests and what is best for them, so it’s your decision !

Save the dates in June is fine for a January wedding. Invitations shouldn’t go out until October or November though.

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Thank you so much for the response. I was considering doing rounds only because there are some people that I definitely want to invite but then others that are more like maybe because we're trying to keep the guest list from exploding. I figure if I didn't get enough RSVPs then I'd have more room for some other people.

I feel like my wedding is somewhere in between a destination and just regular. Most of our guests will be coming from New York City and Chicago, to Washington DC. So that's why I'm kinda worried about the timeline of these invites. Some close relatives already have a heads up though.

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Alright! This helps a ton, thank you!

The end of June is fine for save the dates, or you can skip them. There should be one “round” of invitations and they should go out 6-8 weeks before the wedding. 5-6 months is much too early. What you’re describing is called b listing and it’s extremely rude.

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Well I'm not trying to be extremely rude I'm trying to control the guest count, if I could I would invite everyone but it's simply not possible. And as far as I've seen this is how the vast majority of wedding invitations have been handled within various weddings that I've helped out with in my family/extended family. This is also the advice doled out to me by a wedding coordinator. At the end of the day I'm sure most people have to choose who to prioritize when it comes to wedding invitations and I see nothing wrong with it.

Send your stds to those who you 100% want to invite. If someone gets a save the date they need to get an invitation.
You should also probably work to have your guest list down before you send anything... you need to pick a venue so you actually have a date and general location nailed down for people to save.

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Thanks for the response! I'll definitely be doing that with the std. I have the location and venue. As for the guest list, I have a rough estimate but there's all sorts of theatrics surrounding that hence the need to prioritize.

View Quoted Comment I have most of my guests traveling in, so I had hotel blocks set before I sent stds, I monitored who had made reservations for the hotel, and had my parents let me know when they heard of family/friends who won’t be able to make it, or will be making the trip.

We we are getting ready to send invites out in about a month, and I already know of a few people that won’t be able to come (elderly family members, those who won’t be able to afford it, etc).

We do have a similar but different issue than you in that we need to hit a guest minimum, so we will probably send invites to some others that we didn’t send a std to

View Quoted Comment I don’t think it’s rude, it’s called reality. Not everyone has an unlimited budget and room for every person they’d like to invite. You do what you need to do and what’s right for you. If I was in a second round of invites I wouldn’t be offended and would be happy to come celebrate if I was able.

I do think August is a little early for the first round of invites, I’d try to send them maybe early October and get second round (depending) by mid-November, that’s give you at least 4-5 weeks for getting some RSVPs back. Hopefully your guests send them back quickly. I always try to respond immediately or I forget, but I know s lot of people don’t know until closer to. Good luck!

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That's a great way of figuring things out for the guest list! Our hotel is giving us a block as well, I guess I can use that to help me sort things out too.

We started with the same issue as well of not knowing if enough people would be willing or able to make the trip based on our original tentative list but unfortunately now due to theatrics...we're more trying to work on controlling the list and are forced to make hard decisions.

I hope everything works out with your guest minimum. Hopefully if there are any issues maybe the hotel will allow you to re-allocate the minimum towards add ons in food and beverage. I think that's what we were thinking about doing when we first felt we might not meet the minimum.

View Quoted Comment We aren’t really worried about hitting the food/beverage minimum, but having enough actual bodies in the room to make it look somewhat not empty. We initially wanted like a 20 person wedding... realized that wasn’t realistic so we booked a country club that can fit up to 359, but looks bare with 100. So we invited 154, are expecting 130ish.

Mind if if I ask what the theatrics are? That might help with some of the advice on what to do! Example- if it’s around co-workers, I started at a new job last July, so when we sent stds in March, I wasn’t close with any of them, but we may send them invites if we are looking low on guest count (from verbal responses to stds)

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Thank you so much for understanding! It's been really hard on me and my FH figuring out how to sort out the guest list. I don't think either of us are happy about the process (family theatrics) but at the end of the day there's only so much we can stretch ourselves. Believe me it's probably the most stressful hurdle we've run into.

Thank you for laying out that timeline for me it really helps! I wasn't sure how far behind I was or how to space things out but what you're saying seems to make a lot of sense.

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Ah I get what you mean! I think your guest count sounds pretty good. I think what might help even more is if you're still worried is if they let you get creative with the types of tables you can use or maybe even decor. When we were worried about the same thing, we saw that our hotel had the option of using long rectangular tables. I prefer round tables but I saw that the rectangular tables took more space up in the room and made it look more full along with candles!

As for the theatrics...Well my parents have been way over the top when it's comes to the guest list down to my mother feigning blood pressure issues when confronted. I love her dearly but the theatrics I can do without... My FH and I are both low key people and therefore wanted a more intimate wedding.

However, my mom and dad have people they feel must be invited because they are "family". While some of them I agree on, others I don't and I also don't want the demographics of the wedding to be skewed. Some of the "family", my mom insists on being there are just terrible people...but then they are also the parents of people I do want there so I'm almost forced to invite them. Then my father has a slew of relatives he wants there who are good people but we rarely if ever see them some of them I've seen less than a handful of times in my entire life but then these relatives stepped up for my dad and our family when we needed them. So it feels crappy to cut them when some of the people on my mom's side that I'm forced to invite due to them being parents of people I do like and want there who are my actual peers... are really horrible and probably hoping somehow the entire wedding goes up in smoke or something.

All of these add ons is forcing me to have to put others in a maybe column that I genuinely would rather have there in effort to constrain the list. We're just lucky my FH happens to have a smaller family. My parents are now claiming that they are going to contribute money towards some of their invites but I know realistically it's just going to be a strain on them but they won't hear it. So the entire thing has been an absolute headache hence the whole thing about rounds and such.