Save the dates necessary?

glamorous0813

All of my guests are local and my wedding is on a Saturday night in the summer. Should I be sending out save the dates? My invitates are going out in May anyways so I don't know if its really necessary or wasted money. Any opinions? Also, I don't know how I feel about STD invites, sometimes I think they are tacky. I might rAther send out an elegant formal wedding invitation. Any opinions?

McRogol

Here are the reasons why we did STDs:

- A summer wedding in Narragansett means guests need to reserve hotel rooms significantly in advance.

- All but 2 of our guests will be traveling between 40 and 3000 miles to attend.

- My cousin is also getting married this summer and we (my cousin and I) felt like we should give our family a head's up that there will be two weddings this summer, relatively close together.

If things like this don't apply to you than I say if you don't want to, dont.  

cristin517

We did not do save the dates. I figued it was not worth the money and I will get my invites out 8 weeks in advance. We are only having around 75 people and most are family and know when the wedding is. I  emailed hotel info to the couple out of town guest we are inviting.

RoyalOrient

In most cases I say Yes, they are necessary especially for a summer wedding when people attend multple weddings and make arrangements far in advance but if you are like Cristin517, you could get away with not having to send out Save the Dates. In my culture, Save the Dates are unheard of but since we had a mix of guests and many people from out of town, they were a must especially since we wanted to link our wedding website on there. I just didn't want to spend a lot of money but I didn't want generic Save the Dates that would be preceived as cheesy or tacky. I used the free custom template from Weddingchicks than had the stds printed. We use magnet strips and ordered vellum envelopes on sale and sent them out. I spent a little over $50. 

www.paperandmore.com

http://www.weddingchicks.com/freebies/

jennyd412

I only did Save the Dates because my wedding is June 29th, weekend leading into 4th of July week. Also, my wedding is at Lake of Isles at Foxwoods. Though this is far from a destination wedding, to many Rhode Islanders (majority of my guests) its too far away to go without staying the night. The location being at the casino also seems to make more people want to book a room for the night, so they can party into the morning.

If your wedding is this summer, its kind of getting late for save the dates.