As couples begin the process of wedding planning, stationery often is one of the first things that come to mind. You’re getting married and it’s important to spread the word! After the venue, date, and caterer are booked, it’s time to turn your attention to the all-important destination save the dates. No matter where you chose to get married, almost any wedding in 2021 is a destination wedding to some extent – so few of us live in our hometowns these days.
One of the biggest things you can do to help yourself out as soon as you get engaged is to start gathering addresses. It’s a bigger chore than it sounds like! You can use services like Postable to collect addresses, but eventually you will need a nicely formatted (think: everything capitalized correctly, proper names, etc.) Excel spreadsheet for printing or for the calligrapher. Start working on that right away!
Save the dates are an announcement, not an invitation. They are simply letting your guests know when and where you plan to tie the knot. That said, it’s not the worst idea to be a little more informative with your save the date. At a minimum, you should include a wedding website address (unless your wedding is very small) so that guests can find more information about the day.
Sometimes, we include information on the back of the save the date. We always feel that if it’s something you REALLY want your guests to know, you should print it and not expect that they will make it to the wedding website to find that out. For example, if you are really hoping to have everyone stay at a certain resort or hotel, print the block information and details on the back of your save the date. That way it can’t be missed!
As for design concepts, it’s always nice to introduce your colors and overall vibe with the save the date design. Consider using a fun envelope color or incorporating some element of the city or venue where you’re hosting the big day. Obviously, being based in Charleston, we love doing that as there is no shortage of amazing scenery to work with in the Holy City!
Once the design is finalized, you’ll place your order. The single biggest wedding stationery mistake couples make is over ordering the save the dates. You do not need a save the date for each guest; rather, most of them are probably couples. One per household! That’s why pulling that address list together first thing is so important – it will give you a better idea of the actual number you need.
After save the dates are happily in the mail, you can relax a bit until it’s time for the wedding invitation card design. Typically, we recommend starting that process about 6 months before the wedding, knowing that the invitations should be approved for production about 3 months before the big day.
Typical wedding invitation timing is as follows:
Wedding Date
- Month Before: RSVPs due
- Months Before: Invitations in the mail
- Months Before: Invitations approved
- – 6 Months Before: Design Phase
Often couples worry and want to send it out sooner. Remember, that’s what the save the date was for! Sending it out sooner doesn’t generate a reliable list. If you want to go a little sooner, we recommend no more than 3 months out, which means you have to have everything finalized 4 months out. A lot of times people forget that sending out the invitations means finalizing menus, other events, time, etc. and it can no longer be changed. No reason to do that sooner than necessary and risk having to reprint if something needs to change (it’s usually the time!).
So, to re-cap the big do’s and don’ts:
- Don’t over order your save the dates! Take the time to get your address list together before hitting “approve” on that order.
- If it’s really important for your guests to know about it, write it in the printed material. Don’t assume they will go to the website.
- Don’t send the invitations too early. Your guests have busy lives and they will put it off if it’s too far into the future – plus, you’ll lose flexibility in the planning process sooner than necessary.
- And one more bonus: no registry or mention of gifts in the invitation anywhere. Mentioning gifts makes it seem like you sent an invitation to buy you a gift. Any reference to that should go on the website only.
If you ever have wedding stationery questions, you can always reach out to us via email, Instagram, or give us a call. We’re happy to chat!
Leave a Reply