Do I really need to order my invitations already?

climbingsingle

Wedding is 9/27 and TK's To Do list is telling me I should have ordered them last month. That seems so early! I do already have them picked out (from Wedding Paper Divas). Help me, knotties! When should I order? 

HisGirlFriday13

We ordered ours in July to mail in August for an October wedding.

I don't know that it can hurt to order them early -- if your wedding is Sept. 27, then you'll be mailing them in late July, I assume, so you probably want them to arrive in late June or early July to allow you time to address them.

There are pros and cons on both sides. If you do order early and, God forbid, there's a mistake, you have time to have them reprinted. Ordering early also allows for having a time cushion for USPS or other delivery problems.

If you order too early, though, you risk them getting damaged or spilled on or banged up or whatever.

If you have them picked out, and you know what the standard delivery window is, I'd work backwards from there -- if you want them in late June and it takes two weeks to get them, order them in mid-June.

I also think TK thinks everyone sends their invites out to be hand-calligraphed, which of course takes AGES, so you need the invites much earlier than you otherwise would. 

sarahufl

Wedding is in July, invites are in a box in my apartment as of last week.

I had mine custom designed, so the process took a bit of time. They were also being shipped from Canada, which takes some time. We started with the designer in January? I am happy to have them in my hands, it is just one thing I don't need to worry about anymore.

I would say from Wedding Paper Divas, it would likely be a quicker process.

Kauris

We are getting married the same day as you and we just started working with our invitation designer. I'm also doing my own calligraphy so I want to have as much time as possible since it's my first time doing so many items.

Cookie Pusher

My wedding is 76 days out and I haven't ordered our invitations yet. The place I will order them from has a 1-day turnaround and it takes 2-3 days to ship. So... I'll have everything only a few days from when I order. Since I don't have to even send them out a couple of weeks, I'm okay with my decision to procrastinate. We had our STDates really early and they drove me nuts sitting in the box - I wanted to mail them immediately!

cupcait927

I have to get a move on and order my invites soon because they need to go out earlier than I originally anticipated. Our venue needs a final count 30 days before our wedding (irritating yes, but considering everything else they're doing for me, I'll let it go) so that means I need to have them out by mid-June/beginning of July in order to give 6 to 8 weeks for replys and then time to follow up should we not get all the response cards back. My goal is to get them picked out and ordered this week (along with everything else I've been slacking on...)

Peaseblossom55

I ordered my invites at the end of January, they sat around for awhile but I had them and had time to do some of the assembly and gluing required.  They got mailed last week.    I wanted to make sure I had them so if there were errors there was time to make changes.

MamaAlly89

I ordered mine at the end of Feb ( wedding is August 2nd) VistaPrint was having a 50% off sale that I could pass up! But, I would say as long as you have them in hand with enough time to address them all and still send them out 6-8 weeks before your wedding date you will be good. For you I would suggest having them by the end of June.

SBmini

Depends on how long production timeline is. We ordered ours in February for our April wedding, but I went with a local printer who turned everything around in two days. You should probably start looking at invitations and select what you want- but I would hold off on ordering until you are 100% sure of all your details. 

Simky906

I plan on ordering my invites sometime in the next week or two from WPD from my 9/06 wedding.

I'm ordering them soon because we will be addressing them all by hand and I like to do a couple a day rather then address them all at once. (Plus, June is a really busy month for me and we'll send them out in early July.)

Really you should be fine waiting until May or even June. We got our StD's from WPD as well and had them within 10 business of ordering.

tcnoble

@ckel24 glad I'm not the only one with a venue requiring the 30-day notice! 

cupcait927

@ckel24 glad I'm not the only one with a venue requiring the 30-day notice! 

Yay! I've got company! Our venue is a small restaurant that's part of a winery and the executive chef is also the de facto wedding coordinator. He's amazing and doing all the set up, tear down and music coordination for me so I figured I'd cut him some slack on needing my count 30 days out. If it was a traditional catering hall without all the added help, I'd probably not be as okay with it.

Hisprinc3ss

Order them, send them out, and have an earlier RSVP date.