Wedding is august 2020. How soon to send invitations?

Invites typically go 6-8 weeks before the wedding.
When does your caterer need a final headcount? Try to make your RSVP date 1 or 2 weeks before that to give yourself time to follow up with the inevitable guests who don't RSVP.

I do not recommend sending Save the Dates.


I have some, but didn’t use them.
It’s a good thing as some people that would have received them weren’t actually invited.

Since I didn’t have to provide a head count, I started mailing Invitations at the end of June with 8/23 as the RSVP deadline for our 9/21 Wedding.

This was so that people could plan to be away from work and make 🏨, ✈️, and Rental 🚙🚗 arrangements.
As there was a Holiday before the Wedding, it allowed time for those that are not the best at RSVP’g to get them back by 9/13. I wanted to finalize the seating chart by 9/20.

Since a Holiday falls before your date of 8/8, I would recommend sending them out the week of 6/13 with an RSVP date of 7/25 (8/1 at the latest, but that’s really close).

If you do not send a save the date, I recommend sending invites 6 months prior for traveling guests. Head count is usually due to a caterer 2 weeks out but I’d give yourself 3-4 weeks in order to contact those that didn’t respond.

Do you have a lot of guests who will be coming from out of town? If so, I would definitely send save the dates. Send them now if possible, and no later than January. Otherwise you risk people not being able to travel for your wedding. If every guest is local and most people already know when it is, you can skip save the dates.

For invitations, I'd probably send two months in advance (three months if you didn't send out save the dates). Base the RSVP date on when you need headcounts for your vendors. Give yourself at least a week to chase down all the guests who don't RSVP. Our RSVPs will be due about a month in advance so that we can give our vendors a final headcount in time, and I typically do see RSVP deadlines of a month in advance (or a little earlier) for the weddings I'm invited to.

I am doing an email save the date just because everyone is coming from all over the country and the wedding is 11 months away, so I want to give them time to figure out travel plans. I will probably send out my invites 2 months prior but I think asking for an RSVP 2 weeks prior is the latest just for the caterer, bar setup etc.

Save-the-dates aren't necessary, but they're nice if you have many people who will need to travel for the wedding. I'd say since the wedding is less than a year away, you can send those any time.


Formal invitations should go out in June, maybe early July depending on your exact date.

I'm getting married August 1, 2020. I'm planning on sending my invitations sometime in April with an RSVP deadline of July 3rd. Knowing my family and friends, I'm giving them a lot of time to respond. I also wanted my RSVPs almost a month before the wedding so that I could finalize the seating chart and order placements cards, maybe on Independence Day in case there are any sales.

I don't think you can ever do it too early if that's what you're worried about... But I just ordered Save the Date's and am sending them next week... Personally, I'm waiting until February to send my invitations - as my wedding is in Puerto Rico and half of our guests will be traveling. I asked for RSVP info on July 1 and our wedding is August 8.