A lot of OOS guests and STD

6-8 months is usually plenty of time to plan. I think you're good.

A year is way too early. 6-8 months will be plenty of time.

Ok thanks @MCTB

We're doing a DW where everyone will be traveling. We sent out our STDs about 10 months out and spoke to our VIPs before making any concrete plans. I think 8 months before is plenty of time, unless your wedding falls on a holiday where people may have made plans super ahead of time.

I didn't mine 11 to 12 month ahead because I know people may need to save and I also wanted to do it before they started to plan their summer vacations some people plan a year ahead

Our wedding is OOS for all and a holiday weekend so we sent ours 9 months in advance with room block info.

May not be popular; but we made sure to get ours out before the new year. Most of FH's family is out of state & since we are having a Friday wedding, some folks have to put in their vaca days before the new year (my FIL has this at his job). If we were having a Sat wedding, we probably would have waited to send them.

Our wedding would have been OOS for nearly all of our guests even if we hadn't had a DW. We will still wait until about 6 months prior to send STDs.

There's a reason guidelines are there, it's a good idea to follow them. They're not just some arbitrary timeframe that someone pulled out of their ass.

@MNA true, guidelines exist for a reason, however, there's always other considerations to keep in mind.

My wedding is Oct 7th, my room blocks expire July 7th, and everyone is out of state. If I waited until 6 months out to send my save the dates, that only gives all 175 guests 3 months to get together enough spare cash for a 2 night hotel stay and time off from work.

UO I sent mine out a year before. We had a lot of time to determine the guest list (over 1 year), so we had been set on that for a while. Our wedding is a DW for all of our guests and the area is very limited with airports and hotels. Everyone appreciated the advanced notice and started planning how they are going to make it work.

OU. Don't even do them. Realistically, your very close family? You tell them. Your distant family and friends? How can they even predict their schedules a year out?

STDs tie you in to a guest list and if you read enough posts here, you'll definitely read about people who wanted to cut guests for various reasons. Weddings have been taking place for years without STDs.

I sent mine out about 10 months before since our wedding is on a holiday weekend.

@Celia, I agree that it does tie you to a guest list. However, I feel that it can also open up invites to others that you initially weren't able to extend an invite to. We've already heard from several OOS guests that they won't be able to attend; but that means we are more comfortable with inviting a few more folks now. Of course we plan to cover anyone who received a STD. My thought is if they have a STD - they absolutely get an invite. If they didn't receive a STD - you can still invite them when the invitations go out. I'm really not a fan of waiting for RSVPs to come back & then sending last minute invites to those other folks?!? I think it'll make the guest feel like an after thought. Just my opinion.

No, it really doesn't. You're talking a B list, which sometimes doesn't work out the way you hope. Anyone who gets an STD needs to get an invite, that is standard etiquette. But what happens if those people had a change of heart and come?

Then you're screwed.

We're in a similar situation. Most of our guests are OOS and our wedding falls on a holiday.

Luckily we saw most of our OOS family member over this Christmas, and spread the word then.

We will be sending STDs to family at about 10 months out, and including the hotel block info.

For us, we wanted to make sure family had as much info as possible since this will be a destination wedding for them.

For now, I'd just suggest telling them over the phone. Don't spend money yet.

Thanks. I was just checking as far as time frame. I'm sending them out- already ordered them. They are a combo of family/friends. I'll wait 8 months, which will put us at mailing them out in November. Thanks all