My fiance and I are two and a half months from the wedding and relatively recently booked the venue and date, and he would greatly like to send out by email a pseudo-Save the Date to most of the guests of whom we are certainly inviting. It looks like the invitations may not go out until 5-6 weeks out from the wedding day, a close guest requested we send one, and our wedding planning has been kept very quiet. From the responses we've gotten so far, the date is unexpected, people are confused and being told different things, and we really want everyone to be able to come. There are close to 200 guests. Hence, the email Save the Date.
My main question is: is it acceptable to put the venue name on the STD?
It is at a church, and we think it is very important to some of our guests that they know this information and the denomination (in the name) in making decisions about the wedding. As I said, the email is somewhat serving some of the early purposes of an invitation, as they are probably not going out soon enough. So far from what I've read, people just shouldn't or don't do this.