Wedding Etiquette Forum

Save the Date etiquette question....philosophy thought, I guess

indianaalumindianaalum member
5 Love Its First Comment First Anniversary Name Dropper
edited August 2014 in Wedding Etiquette Forum
I have already had my wedding. I never did save the dates, but have always wondered the next question....(not trying to be a jerk, just always wondered if his could lead to hurt feelings somehow)....from an etiquette or sorta philosophical manner, I guess...


If we always tell people we only have to do "save the dates" to people we are 100 percent certain we are inviting and that it is okay to not send them to everyone on the guest list., so my question is this...

Doesn't that somehow lead people to feel "b-listed" when they know others around them who DO receive them?!?? Isn't it sorta like hearing "If I have money, I will be inviting you but right now, I can't promise anything"!?!?!

Just wondering if anyone ever was offended..or know someone who got offended because they knew OTHERS received a STD, but they did not..only to be invited to the wedding several months later. Does that make sense? Doesn't it kinda show "top tier" "second tier" kinda invites to guests??!? If you did not receive a STD (and others did), but then received an invitation months later, couldn't that potentially lead to hurt feelings?!?! Just curious.....



Just curious if anyone else has ever had this thought??


Re: Save the Date etiquette question....philosophy thought, I guess

  • I can definitely see where you're coming from. If people I knew received an STD and I didn't, especially if we knew the couple within the same context (ie, cousins, or co-workers, or college buddies, etc.), only to receive an invite some time later, I'd probably wonder why didn't I get an STD. On the other hand, it's not so much about sending an STD to ppl you 100% want to invite, but rather your VIP guests that absolutely WILL be invited and you want them to have as much notice as possible about the date. I think of this in terms of parents, grandparents, godparents, etc. and not more social acquaintances. At any rate, I find STDs to be kinda unnecessary unless the couple knows their guest will have to travel from very far so an advanced notice is necessary. Maybe my boss just ruined STDs for me, since she sent them to "everybody" (her word, not mine) but not everybody got invited.
  • I think I would assume my STD got lost in the mail if the couple sent one to everyone but myself in a circle because I usually don't assume my friends are trying to be cruel to me.  Especially if I later got an invite.  Now if the couple told me not to expect a STD because they were only sending them to their "close friends" and preceded to send them to everyone else in a social circle I was in, that would be hurtful but mostly because that couple would be jerks.
  • I see where you're coming from. I wouldn't take it personally to not receive a STD (although I would wonder whether I was going to be invited) - but I know some people would get their feelings hurt, even if it isn't technically a violation of etiquette. Personally, I make a point of not discussing with others what events I have (or haven't) received an invitation to.
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  • I get what you're saying and I think its a really interesting point. I think STDs are just part of the evolution of weddings as people get busier and busier in their lives. When people first started doing it, for sure I bet people thought they were b-listing. Now its just a typical step in the process.
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  • If there's a way you could group people, like sending STD'S to everyone coming from out of town but not sending them to those who don't need to know as far out in advance to make travel plans, then I would say that could be a good way to avoid someone feeling like a "B-lister." Or you could just ask everyone who receives a STD to keep it on the down-low, then hopefully that could help avoid any unnecessary drama. 
  • This is honestly why I'm not a huge fan of save the dates anyway. They seem to cause far more problems than the ones they prevent.
  • That happened to me, and I sure did feel b-listed when I found out that others in our same friends circle got save the dates. 

    However, I think if you do it in circles (like closest family but not friends getting stds...) then it's more ok.
  • You know, I never thought about that, but that's because we sent ours to everyone. Our guest list was finalized long before those went out.

    It's interesting, though, and I do remember feeling sort of sad when my mom asked if I got the STD for my cousin's wedding. I knew they were inviting a ton of people, and my uncle had mentioned it to me, so I thought maybe they'd scaled back and I wasn't on the list anymore (which I totally understood; it's not like I was sad because I felt entitled).

    Anyway, I ended up getting an invitation. It turned out they'd only sent STDs to the first couple "circles" of guests, just in case they did have to scale back.

    So yeah, I see your point. That's interesting.
  • lc07lc07 member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    It is definitely an interesting point. I received an STD to a friend's wedding, presumably, because I live 3,000 miles away. A local friend who is just as close to the bride did not receive one at all and was not sure she'd be invited at all. I just assumed I got one because of the travel, whereas the other friend lived in the same town.

    But yes, I do think this is something to consider and re-evaluate from an etiquette standpoint.

  • I have already had my wedding. I never did save the dates, but have always wondered the next question....(not trying to be a jerk, just always wondered if his could lead to hurt feelings somehow)....from an etiquette or sorta philosophical manner, I guess...


    If we always tell people we only have to do "save the dates" to people we are 100 percent certain we are inviting and that it is okay to not send them to everyone on the guest list., so my question is this...

    Doesn't that somehow lead people to feel "b-listed" when they know others around them who DO receive them?!?? Isn't it sorta like hearing "If I have money, I will be inviting you but right now, I can't promise anything"!?!?!

    Just wondering if anyone ever was offended..or know someone who got offended because they knew OTHERS received a STD, but they did not..only to be invited to the wedding several months later. Does that make sense? Doesn't it kinda show "top tier" "second tier" kinda invites to guests??!? If you did not receive a STD (and others did), but then received an invitation months later, couldn't that potentially lead to hurt feelings?!?! Just curious.....



    Just curious if anyone else has ever had this thought??


    Yes. I didn't receive a STD to a friend's wedding and I saw one on a mutual friend's fridge, so I knew they went out and I assumed I wasn't invited. Then I got an invitation to the bridal shower, which I thought was gift grabby. And then, I got a wedding invite. So I made some pretty bad assumptions, but I was an OOT guest and a STD would have been nice. Until the wedding invitation came I was a little stung. But I got over it.
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  • Save the Dates also confuse me. I think at this point, STDs are almost expected. Or at least in my circle. Before TK, I thought they only went out when your guestlist was finalized. For this reason, I would also feel snubbed if I didn't get one. It doesn't look like this is the case. Still confused. lol.

    What is the soonest and latest we should send out the STDs?
  • This happened to my husband once when we were still dating. He knew that some of his friends from college got a save the date for a local wedding and since he did not receive one he assumed he was not invited. This was for the wedding of a former close female friend who there was some romantic interest for although they didn't officially date. So he wasn't too upset by it or anything and just assumed they decided it was kind of weird to invite a sort of ex. He then later received an invitation (with my name on it too) and we ended up going to the wedding. We were surprised to be invited but there were no hard feelings and we had a good time.

    The vast majority of our guests were OOT so we ended up just sending save the dates to everyone. I have a heard anywhere from a year to 6 months for the timing of sending save the dates depending on how much travel is involved.
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  • This totally makes sense. As in the example where an OOT guest got the STD, but a local guest did not.
    DH and I did feel a little slighted when a couple who live in the same town as us got a STD for a wedding and we did not. Even though we have the same relationship with the couple and live the same distance from the wedding. We ended up getting an invite, so it worked out , but we were miffed for awhile.

    We sent STD to only family, WP, and OOT guests. I could certainly see some of our non WP friends wondering why they didn't get one, but we wanted to give ourselves some flexibility in case something crazy came up and we had to cut the guest list or change the date or something. 

    We sent out 80 STD's and 150 invites. It would have been much easier, had we needed to change something, to just contact those 80 households who got STD's, instead of contacting 150 households.
  • I've always wondered this.

    (Am I generalizing here, if I'm generalizing, tell me) All of our friends and ourselves who have recently gotten married or engaged are in our early twenties- 20-23. It is almost expected that as soon as you get engaged you send STDs and I feel as though it is definitely a sore point to not receive one. But, I have a feeling this is just with our age group? As in, STDs started becoming popular around the time that all of us were getting married so everyone just assumed it was part of the package. Get engaged=send save the dates to everyone on earth you are inviting=send invitation later..

    We have a handful of people (less than 15) who we did not send STDs to because both fiance and I had just started new jobs when we began planning so we wanted to keep some buffer space of who we would invite in the end. I feel guilty inviting these people now, knowing they didn't get STDs, because I fear they will feel b-listed, even though it isn't technically the case.

    Moral of my story: i hate STDs and think they should be used only for OOT guests lol. But that is just my own opinion. I still enjoy getting them :)
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  • We sent STDs to the closest family and our closest friends- the true "must have" list.  However, when I really think about it, oftentimes people know where they stand in someone's life.  At least, I think I know where I stand with people. 

    Is a friend someone you see as part of a large group? If so, that's nice. Are they someone you would call individually to have a dinner date with? No? Then no STD needed, even though they still may warrant an invite as part of a "circle."

    The people who received our STDs were people that we personally, or our parents personally, invite for personal social occasions and/or talk to several times a year even if living out of town.  Not everyone in a "circle" is that close to the couple getting married.  

    So, I don't mind STDs at all.  
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  • I definitely saw it as a bit of b-listing if I didn't send out to the same set for both STDs and invites.

    The only changes we had were two people we omitted off the invite list. Don't worry, FI's old boss moved states away after STD and never responded to
    multiple requests for new address while my current boss told me not to send one because his god-daughter is getting married the same day OOT and they already have travel reservations. YES, I know you have to follow up a STD with an invitation, but it seemed gift grabby to me to still send one to my boss after he explicitly said not to. If anything changed in either case, we do have invitations for them and room too.

    For me, even with in-town guests, it was really important for people to know early who was invited and who was not. Simply because I go to a smallish church but not small enough to invite everyone. My divisions made sense (people in my small group and people I'd spent time with outside of church activities), but I think it was helpful for people to know not to just gush about the wedding or ask about the bachelorette party in front of others. Of course people shouldn't be doing those things, but getting the STDs out to everyone made it easier for me to not have a million conversations with people about "well unfortunately we just can't invite everyone we'd like!" 
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  • wrigleyvillewrigleyville member
    First Anniversary First Comment 5 Love Its First Answer
    edited August 2014
    I've always wondered this.

    (Am I generalizing here, if I'm generalizing, tell me) All of our friends and ourselves who have recently gotten married or engaged are in our early twenties- 20-23. It is almost expected that as soon as you get engaged you send STDs and I feel as though it is definitely a sore point to not receive one. But, I have a feeling this is just with our age group? As in, STDs started becoming popular around the time that all of us were getting married so everyone just assumed it was part of the package. Get engaged=send save the dates to everyone on earth you are inviting=send invitation later..

    We have a handful of people (less than 15) who we did not send STDs to because both fiance and I had just started new jobs when we began planning so we wanted to keep some buffer space of who we would invite in the end. I feel guilty inviting these people now, knowing they didn't get STDs, because I fear they will feel b-listed, even though it isn't technically the case.

    Moral of my story: i hate STDs and think they should be used only for OOT guests lol. But that is just my own opinion. I still enjoy getting them :)
    STDs are a relatively new thing. I had never heard of them or received one until about... six years ago? I'm 37, by the way.

    Before that, it was common for people in my circles (family and friends) to send a wedding invitation about six months in advance with an RSVP date of 2-3 weeks before the wedding. So, the invitation itself served as notice. 

    Plus, as soon as the venue was booked and the date was firm, the couple spread the wedding date via word-of-mouth. The couple and their parents would call friends and relatives who were on the list to let them know to mark their calendar.

    My mom still gets confused by STDs. Since they show up around the time she's used to getting an invitation, it irritates her that it isn't more specific. She thinks the STD is the invitation. I've had to explain it several times, and she always says, "Well why don't they just call or send a normal invitation?" :)

    I think STDs got popular right around the time social media exploded. Many things are communicated via text rather than word-of-mouth now, so I can see why STDs took the place of phone calls.

    Not that there's something wrong with that; I'm just commenting on a possible reason for the sudden (to me, anyway) popularity of STDs.
  • @wrigleyville That's a really good connection- STD's around the time of the social media explosion. The "look-at-me" mentality could certainly be seen as a characteristic of the Save-The-Date. Not to say that they have no helpful function, I definitely sent them, but they are also turning into a sort of status symbol when being seen on the refrigerators of everyone's friends.

    A study should be done on these suckers haha!
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  • I guess I am glad I posted this. I guess it gives something to think about for future brides.
  • RedJacks25RedJacks25 member
    5 Love Its First Anniversary Name Dropper First Comment
    edited August 2014
    We sent STDs to our wedding party, our parents, our out-of-state friends and family, and people who we know have very busy personal/professional lives so therefore needed advance notice.

    The few times that it came up that Wedding Party Member #3 got a STD, but Friend #4 didn't, we clarified who we sent STDs to and why. No one seemed put off by it once we explained. Those people closest to us know we were going to invite them anyway, whether they got an STD or not.
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  • Yes, I think STDs have the same possibility of making people feel un-invited or b-listed as wedding invitations. That said, I think STDs can be really important for destination weddings and even for making sure the people closest to you really do "save the date" for your wedding. I think the suggestions of only sending them to certain "circles" (immediate family, etc) is excellent advice. However, once you enter friend territory it can become tricky since I think it does happen that sometimes person A considers person B to be a better friend than person B considers person A.
  • I've always wondered this.

    (Am I generalizing here, if I'm generalizing, tell me) All of our friends and ourselves who have recently gotten married or engaged are in our early twenties- 20-23. It is almost expected that as soon as you get engaged you send STDs and I feel as though it is definitely a sore point to not receive one. But, I have a feeling this is just with our age group? As in, STDs started becoming popular around the time that all of us were getting married so everyone just assumed it was part of the package. Get engaged=send save the dates to everyone on earth you are inviting=send invitation later..

    We have a handful of people (less than 15) who we did not send STDs to because both fiance and I had just started new jobs when we began planning so we wanted to keep some buffer space of who we would invite in the end. I feel guilty inviting these people now, knowing they didn't get STDs, because I fear they will feel b-listed, even though it isn't technically the case.

    Moral of my story: i hate STDs and think they should be used only for OOT guests lol. But that is just my own opinion. I still enjoy getting them :)
    STDs are a relatively new thing. I had never heard of them or received one until about... six years ago? I'm 37, by the way.

    Before that, it was common for people in my circles (family and friends) to send a wedding invitation about six months in advance with an RSVP date of 2-3 weeks before the wedding. So, the invitation itself served as notice. 

    Plus, as soon as the venue was booked and the date was firm, the couple spread the wedding date via word-of-mouth. The couple and their parents would call friends and relatives who were on the list to let them know to mark their calendar.

    My mom still gets confused by STDs. Since they show up around the time she's used to getting an invitation, it irritates her that it isn't more specific. She thinks the STD is the invitation. I've had to explain it several times, and she always says, "Well why don't they just call or send a normal invitation?" :)

    I think STDs got popular right around the time social media exploded. Many things are communicated via text rather than word-of-mouth now, so I can see why STDs took the place of phone calls.

    Not that there's something wrong with that; I'm just commenting on a possible reason for the sudden (to me, anyway) popularity of STDs.
    Thanks for sharing this. That explains why older people say, "I got your invitation" when it's only the save the date.

    I'm 32 and when my first batch of friends got married in the 23-25 age range, that seems to be when they first started becoming popular. Now it seems that most people do them, unless they are having a small wedding.
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  • We sent save-the-dates but we are having a destination wedding, so we wanted to give people lots of time to decide/purchase airfare/plan tours etc. I only sent them to so-called VIPs. My mom wanted me to send them everyone "just to be nice" but I didn't think it was necessary. I wanted to make sure my maid of honor, my parents' siblings, etc had adequate time to make plans. Honestly? The reason save-the-dates exist is to sell stationery. I think they are a courtesy for people who live far away and will need to make arrangements, but aside from that...it's just another piece of the wedding planning puzzle.
  • My FI and I didn't get a STD for our friends' wedding and we were a bit hurt when we saw it hanging on the refrigerator of another friend. This pair happened to send theirs out really early (like a year in advance) and we had gotten closer to them during that year. The bride took my FI to the side and apologized later for it, and said that we were definitely invited, so that made us feel better. But we were a bit miffed before that, so you do run that risk when choosing who to invite/send STDs.

    We sent an STD to everyone on our guestlist because it was finalized at the time and the only people that were not OOT was some of my family, who would have been getting them anyways. Also our wedding is the weekend after Thanksgiving, so we thought an extra heads-up for everyone was good so they could think about travel arrangements early.
  • I don't know why people would assume they were excluded from getting an STD so that makes them more if a "b list" guest. Maybe the STD got lost in the mail, maybe the wedding couple could only order so many so they sent them to family and those who might need the extra heads up like OOT and maybe guests with kids. I would rather assume they just thought I had my stuff together and could handle just the invite's amount of notice. Of course it's always better to have circles in your invite list/STD list so you avoid any hurt feelings. Unless I had reason to believe the wedding couple were snubbing me on purpose, I'd rather believe there was some other reason than they like me less.
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