How far out did you order your invites?

lorena224 · August 2011

We aren't getting married until 4/11/12, but have both our ceremony and reception location picked out and deposits put down. I noticed that a lot of places quote about 4-6 weeks for them to be ready, but we won't be sending out invites until the beginning of the year. I pretty much have the style picked out, but need to work on the wording.

When did you order yours or how far out are you waiting to order them? Thanks!

Tanq&Tonic · August 2011

We made our own, so we finished them the same week we mailed them out, which was 8 weeks before the wedding. It doesn't really hurt to order them early if everything is finalized -- JUST in case they arrive with an error or something and need to be redone. The far more important piece of work is finalizing the details so you have confidence in the location, time, etc and getting all of your guests' addresses.

With your April 2012 wedding, I wouldn't mail invites before February. I'd probably order invites in early November just to bypass any holiday printing rush, and so I could spend the lull at the end of year addressing my invites.

bellathebride · August 2011

That's a good question! I am not sure when to do my STD's and not sure what date to put on my reply cards. My wedding is in June.

Maybe send yours out in Feb? Have you decided what your reply date will be for your guests?

Tanq- typically for destination weddings how long should we give our guests time to think and how far in advance should we get the reply cards back? I'm curious....

jessj336 · August 2011

We are getting married April 5, 2012 and we mailed our STDs at the end of June just to give our guests enough time to plan for the trip to Maui. We will probably send our invitations out early to mid January.

As for the design and printing, I working with a friend who is a graphic designer to design them now and will finalize all details after our planning trip in October so they can be sent to the printer for early November.

So basically what Tanq said sounds good :-)

Tanq&Tonic · August 2011

Well, 'etiquette' doesn't really change whether your wedding is a DW or not. Guidance is Save the Dates 6-9 months in advance, up to 12 months for difficult dates (eg, Thanksgiving) or destinations (passports, etc). Invitations go out 6-8 weeks in advance, with an RSVP 1 week before your final count is due to the caterer, no more than 4 weeks before the event.

I've seen with a lot of DWs, folks are asking for RSVPs months in advance, or having hotel room blocks expire 2-6 months before the wedding. I personally think both are a little silly -- and frankly, life can change so much in that time you simply don't know what will happen. Asking guests to commit that far in advance results in 1) an unfortunately high number of declines, because it's better to decline than accept if uncertain, and 2) a higher degree of change before the actual event happens.

In our experience, most of our guests didn't book flights until formal invitations were in hand. 2 couples that were definitely attending at the 4-6 month mark dropped, and 3 that were not attending at the 4-6 month mark were able to come. I'm kind of an odd ball in that I like to stick to the rules on this kind of stuff -- a few of our guests would have probably appreciated us mailing invitations at the 3 month mark, but they just emailed to confirm things were on and booked anyway

kaesha · August 2011

I totally agree with Tanq about asking for formal commitment super early. I got a wedding invite in December for a wedding in July where we were supposed to respond by February! Yeesh.

FWIW, I think of the rules more as guidelines than anything else. For major destination weddings, I think people do need more time to plan and save and weigh their options. So, I'm all for giving information earlier but keeping the rsvp date the same as with traditional. We sent STDs out 12 months before the wedding, and then real invites went out... maybe 3 months before? The rsvp date was 6 weeks before the wedding (as that was when I needed to finalize a ton of stuff). Unlike Tanq, most of our friends and family booked tickets before they received the actual invites, but I think that's more to do with where they were travelling from (almost half the guests flew in from Liverpool, England) and the logistics. It was much cheaper for them to book earlier rather than later. Ultimately you have to do what works for you!

AKWinterBride · August 2011

Just my opinion, but in DW's, there isn't any hard and fast 'rules'. I sent out our STD's a year in advance, with a DW people need to have time to save and to clear their calendar. We sent out our invitations 5 months before the wedding with the RSVP's due 3 months before the wedding. It worked out perfectly, and our guests appreciated the time they had to plan for their trip.
If you were getting married where you live that may be too much time, but with a DW people do appreciate the time to plan. I've said it before and I'll say it again, DW's are different from a typical wedding and you need to do what works for you and your situation. Having our numbers in early helped us a lot with our budget and deciding what we extras we could add in such as an arch and a clear top tent.
Do what works for YOU.

[Deleted User] · August 2011

I sent out our save the dates out 9-10 months in advance since our family has never really done a DW before. Plus I didn't want the family to say you didn't give us enough notice.

Our invitations were sent out 3.5 months in advance and we gave 6 weeks to respond. We've totally had issues with RSVPs but I think that's because my family doesn't respond to RSVPs. I wish we could've sent them a few weeks later but our coordinator needed to submit the preliminary numbers to the caterer 2 months in advance and we needed to give ourselves 2 weeks to call everyone that didn't RSVP the first time around.

How far out did you order your invites?

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