When to send invites?

My wedding is August 5th 2021 and Im sending my invites out the 2nd week of May, with an rsvp deadline of July 5th. I know ut usually says 8 weeks but we figured 10 weeks for 2 reasons. 1 the mail has been slow and 2 its summer time and people like to make vacation plans and such.

I’m sending mine also at the 10 week mark, because the post office has been slow across the country.

View Quoted Comment My wedding is July 30 and i wanted to send invites out next week or before Mother’s Day and invites due June 23 but I’m worried it’s too early and people will forget and won’t come. Do you think my timeline is realistic? It sounds similar to yours

View Quoted Comment That’s true. The post office has been slow and I didn’t think about that.

6-10 months for save the dates. 6-8 weeks for invites. 3 weeks for replies with a cushion to track down anyone who forgot. The standard timeline per Emily Post. No reason to stray from it.


Any invites sent earlier than 8 weeks will be lost and forgotten. Schools and employers do not give out final schedules prior to 4 weeks when you request time off.

View Quoted Comment Ok thanks! Makes sense

View Quoted Comment I think its realistic. I don't think its too far out where people will forget. And like I said its summer and people like to make vacation plans, so especially where you didn't do std it would be good to get them out there.

View Quoted Comment Ok thanks! This made me feel a lot better.

Also save the dates used to be phone calls several months beforehand. The post cards are pretty new, but plenty of time at 6-10 months out to make plans to fit it in with everything else going on.

View Quoted Comment I figured they were a newer trend 😂😂 one of the reasons we didn’t do save the dates was because of covid. We weren’t sure what restrictions would be in place as far as a guest count and didn’t want to send anyone a save the date just for them to eventually have to be cut from the guest list.

Our wedding is October 7, sending invitations in mid July. Rsvp deadline is August 29. The venue requires a final head count 30 days prior so we have a week or so to contact the stragglers.

Sending out invites 10 weeks prior since a lot of our guest list will need to travel and the hotel room block expires 1 month before the wedding. RSVPs due 3.5 weeks prior since the guest count is due to the caterer 3 weeks before - gives us 3-4 days to track down missing RSVPs!

Here's what I'm planning for my semi-destination wedding:
11 weeks out: mail invites
6 weeks out: RSVP deadline4-6 weeks out: track down responses4 weeks out: final headcount due

Tbh, since you didn't send out save the dates, I'd send out your invitations ASAP. When it comes to summer, people are likely to have their weekends fill up quickly. I know for myself, I have basically every weekend in June, July, and half of August filled with plans already.

USPS is beyond slow right now, so keep that in mind. I sent my out the first week of April for my June 12th wedding (about 10 weeks) and it took 3 weeks to get delivered to one guest in the same state as me. The rsvp date is May 7th.

We are getting married July 31, and we are sending out out invitations the last week of May with a RSVP date of July 17.

My wedding is October 23rd. We sent out save the dates last month and plan to send invites in July with the rsvp of October 2nd I believe

We are getting married next October (2022) and we are also not doing physical save the dates. We may send out a digital one but have not decided yet. We think June or July is when we're sending our invites with RSVPs due in September. Those who do not RSVP will get a bump from either my mom or his mom depending on the side of the family just in case they forgot.

Because we did not send Save The Dates and many (around 50-60%) of our guests live 7+ hours from the location of the wedding, we sent our invitations out about three weeks ago.


Many of our guests took at least a week if not a week and a half to receive the invitations because of the speed of the postal service right now. It also took invitations around 2 weeks to be delivered to us from Shutterfly after we ordered them.

My wedding is July 24th,2021. I'm getting ready to send out invites and then the RSVP's are due at the end of June.