Photography | Kelsey LaNae Photography
8-12 Months From Your Wedding Day
Save the dates can technically be sent out anytime after your venue and wedding date is secured. It comes down to your preference, where your potential guests are coming from and if you're getting married closed to a holiday, on when may be best to send them out. For example, are a large portion of your guests traveling in for the wedding and staying overnight or is your wedding a destination wedding? In these cases, you might want to send these out closer to a year in advance.
6-12 Months From Your Wedding Day
If you decide to go the with a fully custom designed stationery, give yourself lots of time to choose your stationery designer, because custom, hand-made wedding invitations and the process involved is much longer than choosing a ready-to-print template online. A stationer will also be able to help answer any questions about timeline, wording and ideas to keep your aesthetic desires and stick to your budget.
2-4 Months From Your Wedding Day
If most of your guests are local, mail your invitations 8 weeks before the wedding. If about half are local and half are traveling in, mail your invitations 10 weeks before the wedding. If most of your guests are traveling, mail your invitations 12 weeks before the wedding. If you're getting married very close to a holiday or the it's a destination wedding, mail your invitations 12-16 weeks before the wedding.
4 Weeks From Your Wedding Day
On your RSVP, provide a date that your guests must RSVP by. Typically this is 2-3 weeks to a month before the big day, but your venue or caterer will have a date that they will request your final headcount by. Make sure to read over contracts with these vendors before you set the RSVP deadline date. If you're also having a stationer create your place cards or seating chart, they'll need to have a final guest list from you at that time as well.