Wedding Invitations & Paper

Venue Name on STD?

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.




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Re: Venue Name on STD?

  • CMGragainCMGragain member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    edited June 2016
    CaitFins said:
    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.
    I  recommend that you not do this.

    Your guests already know the approximate location of your wedding, don't they?  Travel information for long distance out-of-towners have been made?  This is the purpose of an STD which is why they are MAILED so early.  (E-mail?  Ick!)
    You invitation will give the exact location of your ceremony and reception.  Unless the church is in a really out of the way location (a mountaintop in West Virginia?) people should not need directions.  Most people have GPS.  You can always put this information on your wedding website.
    What kind of people would refuse to attend a church wedding?  Please explain what is going on here!
    You might want to post your invitation wording so we can double check it for you.  There are a few rules about wording, especially for a church wedding or Catholic nuptial mass.
    Why the delay in sending out the invitations?
    httpiimgurcomTCCjW0wjpg
  • CMGragain said:

    I  recommend that you not do this.

    Your guests already know the approximate location of your wedding, don't they?  Travel information for long distance out-of-towners have been made?  This is the purpose of an STD which is why they are MAILED so early.  (E-mail?  Ick!)
    You invitation will give the exact location of your ceremony and reception.  Unless the church is in a really out of the way location (a mountaintop in West Virginia?) people should not need directions.  Most people have GPS.  You can always put this information on your wedding website.
    What kind of people would refuse to attend a church wedding?  Please explain what is going on here!
    You might want to post your invitation wording so we can double check it for you.  There are a few rules about wording, especially for a church wedding or Catholic nuptial mass.
    Why the delay in sending out the invitations?
    OP, including the name seems like unnecessary information. A STD is intended to help people make travel arrangements. So I think it would really depend on if the specific venue will require people to make different travel arrangements or otherwise significantly change their plans.

    @CMGragain maybe I'm missing something but that seems like an unnecessarily harsh response. Emailing a STD would definitely not be formal, but the situation described above doesnt sound overly formal anyways. You repeatedly say that STDs are a recent phenomenon and not necessary so why is it that big of a deal to use recent technologies to get this information across? Why does it matter if this recent and unnecessary paper is mailed or emailed provided the appropriate information is received by the guest so that they can make their plans? 

    OP, if someone sent me a "pseudo STD" via email so that I could travel arrangements for your wedding, I wouldn't think twice about it.  
  • OP, I just got out of bed to check.  My brain is fuzzy tonight.  Are you the Catholic bride whose relatives had a terrible experience with the church?  If you are, I apologize.  I didn't mean to open a can of worms again.
    Your guests will get the information from your invitations.  They will decide at that point whether or not they will attend your wedding.  I don't think any early heads up is a good idea.  It will just stir up more trouble.  They can accept or decline your invitation.
    I really don't like e-mail wedding notices of any kind, but what your FI is proposing isn't something that is done.  It might even draw attention to the fact that you have decided to have a church wedding.  (Good for you!)

    Best wishes for your wedding.
    httpiimgurcomTCCjW0wjpg
  • CMGragainCMGragain member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    edited June 2016
    Ironring said:
    CMGragain said:

    I  recommend that you not do this.

    Your guests already know the approximate location of your wedding, don't they?  Travel information for long distance out-of-towners have been made?  This is the purpose of an STD which is why they are MAILED so early.  (E-mail?  Ick!)
    You invitation will give the exact location of your ceremony and reception.  Unless the church is in a really out of the way location (a mountaintop in West Virginia?) people should not need directions.  Most people have GPS.  You can always put this information on your wedding website.
    What kind of people would refuse to attend a church wedding?  Please explain what is going on here!
    You might want to post your invitation wording so we can double check it for you.  There are a few rules about wording, especially for a church wedding or Catholic nuptial mass.
    Why the delay in sending out the invitations?
    OP, including the name seems like unnecessary information. A STD is intended to help people make travel arrangements. So I think it would really depend on if the specific venue will require people to make different travel arrangements or otherwise significantly change their plans.

    @CMGragain maybe I'm missing something but that seems like an unnecessarily harsh response. Emailing a STD would definitely not be formal, but the situation described above doesnt sound overly formal anyways. You repeatedly say that STDs are a recent phenomenon and not necessary so why is it that big of a deal to use recent technologies to get this information across? Why does it matter if this recent and unnecessary paper is mailed or emailed provided the appropriate information is received by the guest so that they can make their plans? 

    OP, if someone sent me a "pseudo STD" via email so that I could travel arrangements for your wedding, I wouldn't think twice about it.  
    I don't think you have the whole picture here.  It isn't about travel arrangements.  It is more about the religious ceremony.
    STDs are for people to make travel arrangements with hotels and flights.  Local people don't really need them, but a lot of people do expect them, so I have no problem with sending them.
    They are normally sent out six to nine months before the wedding.  Sending them two or three weeks before the invitations are mailed has no value.  This situation (if I have it right) is very complicated, and involves more than just travel arrangements.
    I guess e-mail STDs would be OK, but this situation isn't really about STDs. 
    httpiimgurcomTCCjW0wjpg
  • To be honest, I'm having a little difficulty tracking your line of thought, (I commend you two for writing at this hour, as I was just on my way to bed!), but I will do my best to clarify.

    CMGragain said:
    OP, I just got out of bed to check.  My brain is fuzzy tonight.  Are you the Catholic bride whose relatives had a terrible experience with the church?  If you are, I apologize.  I didn't mean to open a can of worms again.
    I am not the Catholic bride, but I think it is sweet that you are remembering her. I have both travel arrangement and religious ceremony concerns, but they are not as extreme.


    CMGragain said:
    CaitFins said:
    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.
    I  recommend that you not do this.

    Your guests already know the approximate location of your wedding, don't they?  Travel information for long distance out-of-towners have been made?  This is the purpose of an STD which is why they are MAILED so early.  (E-mail?  Ick!)
    You invitation will give the exact location of your ceremony and reception.  Unless the church is in a really out of the way location (a mountaintop in West Virginia?) people should not need directions.  Most people have GPS.  You can always put this information on your wedding website.
    What kind of people would refuse to attend a church wedding?  Please explain what is going on here!
    You might want to post your invitation wording so we can double check it for you.  There are a few rules about wording, especially for a church wedding or Catholic nuptial mass.
    Why the delay in sending out the invitations?


    We have not sent any save-the-dates or information out to the guests yet. They do not know our wedding plans for this time period, the date, or the location/area. We have only just solidified these plans, surprisingly. 


    My fiance brought this to me, very concerned that his many relatives, some of who live far and must have time to plan, will not have the information about our wedding soon enough. He wants everyone he cares about to be there. I told him I felt it was not - the etiquette way - to email beforehand, but he remained sincerely distressed by the situation, which distress is not an emotion of his, so I am hoping to meet him in the middle in this. I plan to limit it to those about who we have significant concerns.

    I became somewhat interested in this solution as well, as we have had difficulty getting news that we plan to marry in August out at all, really. I feel people need to be making arrangements essentially now, and all the information about our wedding that has made it back through the grapevine to us is completely incorrect. I would appreciate the opportunity to clarify them, including a misconception about what denomination the church will be, which my grandmother seems to have propagated.


    It is very important to me that my family understand what denomination the church (my FI's, until now) is, or that they at least not think it is another. My family is not of the same denomination and we are considering having communion, and I don't want them to be more confused than they already need be about what to expect. I do think some may be hesitant to come and/or participate in the religious aspects of it if they aren't given time to process and ask questions if desired. However, I do not think letting them know will cause trouble. I want to be completely open about this.


    The delay: We have not yet ordered the invitations. We are in the final process of choosing the designs, but I honestly was hoping to order samples first. I know it's silly, but I know the invitation has particular significance to me out of the all the wedding things, so I would like to not choose wrongly. We're 10 weeks out, and I'm leaving a two-week wait for the sample and a two-week wait for the invitations, which I have already confirmed is not too short of an estimate. It could be an overestimate in the time it takes, actually. There is also some addressing time. This is why I estimate it could be as late as 5-6 weeks out.


    That being said, I was initially planning to just send the invitations. It is my FI's distress that is making me reconsider this, and so I am trying to see how to make the best of it for the both of us - perhaps by clarifying the church name to avoid more difficulties there.

    @Ironring Thank you. My concern was that the venue might alter someone's travel arrangements, but I don't know.




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  • Just tell your VIPs the date and location. Do you think these people have something against church that has communion? Or just think they have to take it? Though I've never really gotten the whole "programs so that people aren't confused" for catholic weddings logic I guess in your case that could solve some issues.


  • OP, if only a few people would have the problem, why not just telephone them with the information?
    As I posted earlier, Catholic wedding invitations can have different wording, especially if you are having a Nuptial Mass, but standard church wording would be OK, too.
    My daughter has attended Wicca weddings where she was expected to participate.  As a Christian, she felt a bit uncomfortable, and did not say any of the blessings, but she still attended.
    I agree with @MairePoppy, that you need to get on with this.
    httpiimgurcomTCCjW0wjpg
  • CMGragainCMGragain member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    edited June 2016
    OK, you guys have convinced me.  Email STDs are fine.
    httpiimgurcomTCCjW0wjpg
  • This is food for my thoughts!

    I certainly appreciate the encouragement in hastening the invitation orders. I'll put priority on a site that has a shorter processing/delivery time, and I'm thinking there are designs that we're confident enough about not to have to order samples. There was one site that was by far the best deal, but I haven't gotten to try them out yet and haven't heard anything of them so I hoped to order samples first.

    I believe I mostly have made up anxiety about people being uncomfortable with the communion and denomination. Who knows why! Most of my family is able to take communion, but the process is so different that I don't know what to expect they will do. I am not Catholic. I suppose I will have to contemplate more how helpful being told the venue before the invitations will be to my particular guests.

    Thank you, everyone!




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  • SP29SP29 member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    STDs are never required- as you know. But there is no reason why you cannot call, text, e-mail your guests to let them know, "We're getting married August 27th in X city. Invitations will be sent within the next couple of weeks".

    We were married in our hometown, where we did not live. We had a fair number of OOT friends. Once we booked our venue, we told most of our friends verbally the date. I sent a message to my godmother who lived even further away, "Hey! Just wanted to let you know we've booked our wedding date for Jan 4th." (we booked our venue a year in advance so invitations would not be sent for some time).

    If you have traveling guests, I would call them ASAP to let them know. I would also send your invitations ASAP.
  • CMGragainCMGragain member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    edited June 2016
    CaitFins said:
    This is food for my thoughts!

    I certainly appreciate the encouragement in hastening the invitation orders. I'll put priority on a site that has a shorter processing/delivery time, and I'm thinking there are designs that we're confident enough about not to have to order samples. There was one site that was by far the best deal, but I haven't gotten to try them out yet and haven't heard anything of them so I hoped to order samples first.

    I believe I mostly have made up anxiety about people being uncomfortable with the communion and denomination. Who knows why! Most of my family is able to take communion, but the process is so different that I don't know what to expect they will do. I am not Catholic. I suppose I will have to contemplate more how helpful being told the venue before the invitations will be to my particular guests.

    Thank you, everyone!

    The only people who may take communion in the Catholic or Orthodox churches are people who are members of those churches.
    The communion procedure is not much different than that of other denominations, but the beliefs behind it is.
    OP, please tell us what denomination you are being married in.  I'm weary of dancing around it.
    httpiimgurcomTCCjW0wjpg
  • edited June 2016
    CMGragain said:
    CaitFins said:
    This is food for my thoughts!

    I certainly appreciate the encouragement in hastening the invitation orders. I'll put priority on a site that has a shorter processing/delivery time, and I'm thinking there are designs that we're confident enough about not to have to order samples. There was one site that was by far the best deal, but I haven't gotten to try them out yet and haven't heard anything of them so I hoped to order samples first.

    I believe I mostly have made up anxiety about people being uncomfortable with the communion and denomination. Who knows why! Most of my family is able to take communion, but the process is so different that I don't know what to expect they will do. I am not Catholic. I suppose I will have to contemplate more how helpful being told the venue before the invitations will be to my particular guests.

    Thank you, everyone!

    The only people who may take communion in the Catholic or Orthodox churches are people who are members of those churches.
    The communion procedure is not much different than that of other denominations, but the beliefs behind it is.
    OP, please tell us what denomination you are being married in.  I'm weary of dancing around it.
    Actually, in the Roman Catholic Church, members of Eastern Rite and Orthodox churches and the Polish National Catholic Church are permitted to take Communion, as long as their denominations permit it. In the Episcopal Church, any baptized Christian can take Communion, regardless of denomination or age (I'm not sure about any other Anglican Communion churches, though).
  • ScottishSarahScottishSarah member
    First Anniversary First Answer 5 Love Its First Comment
    edited June 2016
    Unrelated to the church discussion, I put our venue name on the save the dates as it is difficult to get to on public transport.  We only sent them to family that were having to travel a distance to our wedding.

    However, our invites went out 8 weeks before (last week!) and our close friends in the city already knew the date and place as we had told them in person. 
  • CMGragainCMGragain member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    edited June 2016
    CMGragain said:
    CaitFins said:
    This is food for my thoughts!

    I certainly appreciate the encouragement in hastening the invitation orders. I'll put priority on a site that has a shorter processing/delivery time, and I'm thinking there are designs that we're confident enough about not to have to order samples. There was one site that was by far the best deal, but I haven't gotten to try them out yet and haven't heard anything of them so I hoped to order samples first.

    I believe I mostly have made up anxiety about people being uncomfortable with the communion and denomination. Who knows why! Most of my family is able to take communion, but the process is so different that I don't know what to expect they will do. I am not Catholic. I suppose I will have to contemplate more how helpful being told the venue before the invitations will be to my particular guests.

    Thank you, everyone!

    The only people who may take communion in the Catholic or Orthodox churches are people who are members of those churches.
    The communion procedure is not much different than that of other denominations, but the beliefs behind it is.
    OP, please tell us what denomination you are being married in.  I'm weary of dancing around it.
    Actually, in the Roman Catholic Church, members of Eastern Rite and Orthodox churches are permitted to take Communion, as long as their denominations permit it. In the Episcopal Church, any baptized Christian can take Communion, regardless of denomination or age.
    Also in the Presbyterian Church and the United Methodist Church.  Not sure about the Baptists, but the Southern Baptist Church I worked for didn't mind if I took communion.  This is why it can be confusing to many Protestants when they at tend a Catholic or Orthodox Mass.  Like a previous poster said, let the priest take care of this.
    httpiimgurcomTCCjW0wjpg
  • KShizKShiz member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Comment
     "My fiance brought this to me, very concerned that his many relatives, some of who live far and must have time to plan, will not have the information about our wedding soon enough. He wants everyone he cares about to be there. I told him I felt it was not - the etiquette way - to email beforehand, but he remained sincerely distressed by the situation, which distress is not an emotion of his, so I am hoping to meet him in the middle in this. I plan to limit it to those about who we have significant concerns."


    I think you answered the question. You're FI is concerned to the point of distress, you can easily email those whom you think are effected. So do that. He's happy, those who pose a concern now have additional information. Seems like everyone wins :) 
  • I don't know if Minted is one of the companies you are considering, but they have a general sample pack of papers, styles, etc. (as do other companies, but this is the one I have experience with) that you can usually find a free code for. If it's really important to you to have a sample of the specific one you are considering, that won't help, but it was enough for me to see a letterpress like the one we were ordering, and they got those samples to us quickly!
    We got our actual, letterpress invitations pretty quickly (though we had a very simple suite: just invitations and RSVP cards), and when there was a printing error on some (not centered), they had the corrected invitations to my house in two or three days - well before I had finished addressing the ones that printed correctly.
    Our Save-the-Dates from them were just printed, not letterpress, and I was surprised at how quickly those were on our doorstep - which was great for us, since we only had a seven month engagement and needed to get them out ASAP.
    Just some notes /if/ they were already a company you were considering about how our timeline worked and how that might work for you to get invitations out quickly without sacrificing something important to you!
    Oh, and Minted is also doing some free evites on a sort of beta-testing platform, I think through the end of this month? We decided to do that for our Rehearsal Dinner invitations, since everyone really already knew the plan, just to make sure they had something to reference. Might work for a quick Save the Date with a little design element to it, if you can turn off the RSVP function? If not, though, I agree with (most) PP that an email Save the Date sounds good in this situation.
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