When to send invites when EVERYONE is coming from out of town to L.A.?

gabeleighanna

Hi Everyone!

So I am having my wedding in my home city of Los Angeles, CA. Problem is, every single person is coming from out of town! So even though it's not technically a destination wedding for us, it is for everyone else.... I also am aware of how expensive it is to travel to L.A. and pay for a hotel room. My wedding is on June 30th, and I'm thinking about sending out invites this weekend (Feb. 1st) so as to give everyone extra time to prepare for costs that will be involved to travel out here. I sent out a save the date on Jan. 7th (side note, I am using electronic invitations and save the dates to be more environmentally conscious and streamline the RSVP process, so everyone will get them the day I send them out), so everyone is aware that it is in Los Angeles, but I wanted to give people a chance to snag up a room from a block we have put aside and got for a killer price, or if they are going to stay elsewhere to start the (at times, very overwhelming) search for a hotel in L.A. 

Is it OK for me to send the invites so early, or should I wait a bit longer? If you were a guest would you appreciate the advance notice or think it is overkill? Thanks for any input you can provide!

doeydo

If you want to send Save the Dates (STDs) ahead of time, that is great.  But invites should be sent around 6-8 weeks before the wedding regardless of the amount of out of town (OOT) guests.

AddieCake

If you already sent STDs, they already know when and where. They do not need any advance notice beyond the normal 6-8 week timeframe. 

gabeleighanna

Thanks for the advice! I wasn't sure since I sent the save the date, so I figured theoretically it shouldn't be some big surprise that the wedding is in L.A. ...but you never know with some people. I sometimes feel people get the STD and just forget about it until the invite comes along. I didn't tell guests about the room block, but it is up on our website. I was worried that people would feel pressured into RSVP-ing and everything if I did send the invites out, so I'm glad you brought that up. Thanks again!

MyNameIsNot

gabeleighanna said:

Hi Everyone!

So I am having my wedding in my home city of Los Angeles, CA. Problem is, every single person is coming from out of town! So even though it's not technically a destination wedding for us, it is for everyone else.... I also am aware of how expensive it is to travel to L.A. and pay for a hotel room. My wedding is on June 30th, and I'm thinking about sending out invites this weekend (Feb. 1st) so as to give everyone extra time to prepare for costs that will be involved to travel out here. I sent out a save the date on Jan. 7th (side note, I am using electronic invitations and save the dates to be more environmentally conscious and streamline the RSVP process, so everyone will get them the day I send them out), so everyone is aware that it is in Los Angeles, but I wanted to give people a chance to snag up a room from a block we have put aside and got for a killer price, or if they are going to stay elsewhere to start the (at times, very overwhelming) search for a hotel in L.A. 

Is it OK for me to send the invites so early, or should I wait a bit longer? If you were a guest would you appreciate the advance notice or think it is overkill? Thanks for any input you can provide!

Invites go out 6-8 weeks in advance, regardless.

Please use a real invitation.  E-vites are for BBQs, not for weddings.  People are not going to take your wedding seriously and get on a plane for an e-vite event.  

JoanE2012

Another vote for using physical invitations.  There is plenty of stationary available that is environmentally-friendly.  It's one of the most important events you'll host.....it deserves more than an e-vite.

As for the timing, 8 weeks is good.  You should have an enclosure with your invitation that details the room block and when to book buy to guarantee a spot/rate.

Jen4948

It sounds to me also that 8 weeks is the right time to send out invitations.

But although I am sympathetic to your environmental consciousness, I also advise you to use paper invitations and not eVites to invite your guests.  eVites are too informal and not taken seriously by guests.  They also get caught in spam filters, and some guests, especially elderly guests, may not be sufficiently tech-savvy enough to use them.

Maggie0829

Another reason to use paper invites is you may have people like me who hardly ever check their email. The last time I probably checked my email was about a month ago. All I ever get are advertisements and other crap emails that I just don't care to sift through. So even though you may have sent me a STD I may not have seen it and the same could happen with your invitation.

[Deleted User]

Since you are doing so much electronically, if you haven't done so, you may want to consider doing a wedding website. It's a great place where you can list hotel information, things to do while your guests are in town, resturants to check out, you can even list where you are registered. Then all you have to do send out your website to everyone and they will have access to the information.

I do agree with PP, paper invites are still nice to get, if it's environmental issues you are concerned about, they make invites now that have seeds in them, and then after your wedding, your guests can plant the invites & then when the flowers are blooming they will remember your beautiful day

On the RSVP, a friend of mine was a BM at a wedding where they only did online rsvp, the bride ended up having to call out to over 50% of the guest list because of no responses. Guess responding that way isn't very reliable due to people forgetting or websites not working well.

gabeleighanna

Oh wow, I totally haven't checked this in a while and it got away from me lol!

Trying to answer all of the points I can:

-I ended up waiting to send out the invites to a more appropriate time frame, thank you for that info., I think the guests were fine with it especially because of the save-the-dates

-My family/friends are pretty tech savvy and loved the e-vites, but I would advise that anyone else thinking of doing this consider who they are inviting and the types of people who will receive them. Our family is really laid-back, along with myself and the future hubby, and they thought it was a super cool idea. We paid for nicer e-vites though through paperless post that we were able to fully customize and make look really adorable

- That being said, I sent paper invites that I made myself (and I patted myself on the back for quite a bit because they turned out so well!) to family members (especially for the older family members!) so they would have a little memento and also to give them a better heads up

-So far, many people have responded to the e-vites, but again, we are having a pretty small and intimate wedding with mostly family and a handful of very close friends, so we had the benefit of everyone talking to everyone about it. And again, our family and friends are all pretty tech savvy (the grandparents were actually some of the first to respond!) so we were not too worried about it getting passed up by people

-We have a wedding website that we put up when we sent out the save the date that our family and friends are obsessed with! We have over 200 views on the dang thing, I can't believe it! So yes, that is a HUGE thing I would recommend for EVERYONE. 

Thanks for all of the help and I'm so sorry I kinda let this thread run loose for a while!

CMGragain

Never mind.  E-vites!  Sigh!