sending invitaions

[Deleted User]

I am getting married june 2014. Is it to late to send save the dates?  When should I send out invitations?

Thanks

pbi9994

It might not be too late, but I would consider sending them as email save the dates to save you time and money. Designing them, ordering them and sending them will take you a couple weeks at the least, so if your intention with a save the date is just to let people know where and when, that can totally be done by email.

As far as invitations go, that is a little trickier, depending on your destination and how much advance travel time people will need. For a non-DW, people send invites at the two month mark. Most of us on this board sent them a lot sooner because we have to have RSVPs a lot sooner. Figure out when you need to know by, and work backwards from there. If your wedding involves a 6+ hour plane ride, expensive lodging, time off from work, etc. give people about a month to RSVP, or more if you can.

luckystarz

Our wedding is in April, and we are going to be sending invites out this week. We did a small email for a 'save the date' so people could go ahead and watch flights, hotels, etc. a few months ago. We received a lot of positive feedback from that, and it's been nice because people have been able to book things are fare sales come and go. 

princessleia22

It depends on your destination and travel arrangements that are required for the guests.  For mine, I'm getting married on a cruise ship in June 2014.  We invited all of our guests to join us on the 7-day cruise. And the port is not near any of our guests (we have family spread across country, so we decided to meet in the middle), so everyone has to make travel arrangements. If guests booked cruise at least 8 months prior, they get price guarantee, so we wanted to get all information out ASAP so they had the option of booking early.  It also allows them to have more time to plan and save money for it, which is especially important if they plan to join us on cruise.  

I started on STD's about 12 months prior, but realized that I wanted to include so much information on it for booking, that it really wasn't just a simple STD anymore.  So, I went ahead and sent out the actual invites 10 months before wedding. I included a "preliminary" RSVP, of which I received about 50% back (I knew some people would be undecided about whether they could attend that far out, but wanted to try to narrow down # of guests).  At about 4-5 months out from wedding, I plan to sent more information to everyone, including accommodation info, reminders to book, info on cruise excursions that they may want to book in advance, etc.  I will also include a final RSVP, which will request additional info that I need to provide to cruise.  I will send this to anyone that previously responded yes or didn't respond.  Then I plan to send out another mailing about 1 month prior with last minute info, directions to port, boarding info, maps, things to do, suggested packing list, etc.  I also plan to include some custom luggage tags in this mailing.  

If your DW is in US and doesn't require any reservations far in advance and they only need to plan for travel & hotel, then I think you are fine sending out STD now.  In that case, I would go ahead and send out STD within the next month or so, stating date & location, and then you could probably send out the formal invites about 2 months or so.  It may also be advisable to have wedding website that contains any additional travel or accommodation info and include the link on your STD.  But, just remember that not everyone is tech-savvy or will look at websites, especially some of the older generation (we put a lot of effort into our site and have a couple family members that called asking for info because they "don't do computers"), so include enough info on your STD & invites that they can get there without going online.

[Deleted User]

I'm getting married in July 2014 and trying to send out my save the dates by e-mail this month.  For those of you who already sent them, I have a couple of questions about how you did it:

For married/serious couples, did you send a save the date to both of their e-mail addresses?

What did you include?  I'm planning on a photo, link to our website, and a link to a special save the date video my fiance made.  Do you think that's too much or too little?

Our wedding is in California, but most of the family is from Arizona.  Do you think sending invites in February/March is too soon?

Thanks and congratulations to you all!

luckystarz

We sent STD's in the mail, not sure about e-mail though. 

Our invites will go out this week, wedding is in April.