Save-the-date for destination wedding?

WiscDoll322

My fiance and I are having a DW later this year and all of our guests will be traveling. We are planning to send a save-the-date, but I'm wondering the best way to go about it. A friend of mine had a DW last year and sent a STD letter along with a preliminary card to get an idea of who planned to, maybe planned to but needed more info, and didn't plan to attend the DW but wanted to attend the local celebration. The preliminary card was returned to the couple with guests' most current plans, and the couple anticipated that people could change their minds. We really like that idea because it gives a slightly better idea on number of people that are considering attending, but we know at this point that we will likely mostly maybes -- so is it worth it to send a letter/preliminary card, or do we just send a STD announcement and leave it at that?

TerriHugg

We did a video save the date in order to save money and not waste paper. At the end of the video I directed recipients to our wedding website where they could make their tentative RSVP. this was our video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m00Uu5rLO0M 

Of course, a lot of people didn't bother doing the tentative RSVP on the website so we ended up just coming up with a rough estimate ourselves. But it was fun to do the video anyway and it was much cheaper than doing paper ones that we mailed

WiscDoll322

The video is a good idea and great way to save paper! Never thought of it, but we may consider something like that. Thanks for the link.

amorg334

We did save the dates and put our wedding website on it and then we had all the travel info on the site along with the name and phone number of who was taking care of our travel arrangements.  

THese were our Save The Dates

[Deleted User]

We did save the dates too - also with website that had all the info. Our wedding is going to be small so it was easy to talk to all our "must have" folks to make sure they were coming.

Also - YAY to another Milwaukee girl doing a DW 

Julyet06

We did electronic save the dates but started telling friends and family via word of mouth as soon as we decided on a DW to try and get a feel of who would come.  We did get lots of yeses at the beginning but as we got closer we sort of knew who would show and who wouldn't.

Good Luck!!

WiscDoll322

Great ideas. Thanks, all! We have talked to most of our "must have" folks, so we do have a bit of an idea of who is interested in traveling and celebrating with us, but you've helped us decide that we will still definitely do a STD.

And WinoGrrl, love your screen name. In addition to being a Milwaukee bride planning a DW, I am a bit of a wino too.

lildropofheavn23

Once we got the date/location set up, we started telling our friends via email/phone. I wanted our closest friends and family to know as soon as we did so they could plan accordingly. We are sending out save the dates 11 months ahead of our planned DW so no one can say that they didn't have enough warning for the wedding!!!We printed out magnet and put our wedding website on the magnet.
The wedding website included travel information, our travel agents contact information, and our plans for when we planned to go and what flight.