We are excited to be starting a series with what you need to know regarding invitations—timeline, etiquette, inspiration. For many of our couples, it’s about that time where you will need to start thinking about what you want to send to your guests. It’s especially important to think ahead if you want to send out save the dates as well as invitations.

Before you start worrying about the style and design of your stationery and what information you’d like to include on your invitations, it’s important to have a timeline in mind so things don’t sneak up on you.

Save the dates:
If you’re planning on sending out save the date cards to guests, you should plan to send them out about 6-8 months before the wedding. Save the dates are great if you have a lot of guests coming in from out of town as it gives them plenty of time to make arrangements for travel or if you have a longer engagement.

Invitations:
If you decide you are not sending out save the dates, we recommend sending out invitations approximately 3 to 4 months before the wedding. Again, this gives guests plenty of time to make arrangements for travel. If you are sending save-the-dates, we recommend sending the invitations out about 2-3 months before the wedding. Regardless of when you send out the invitation, the RSVP by date should be set for about 5-6 weeks before the wedding. This will give you plenty of time before the wedding to contact those guests who have not sent in their RSVP as well as give you plenty of time to create your seating chart.

We hope that you have found this to be helpful. We would also like to note that all of the invitations we will be featuring in this series are from local artists, we highly recommend checking them out! Now for some more invitation inspiration....