Destination save the date vs invitation

Hi! Doing a DW in the Dominican too! Where will you be having yours? I sent my STDs a year out. Sending my invites 5-6 months out since my venue needs numbers early.

I too had a DW. I sent our STDs out about a little over 10 months before and out invites went out about 2 months before. We also had a website with lots of info. Our STDs had our website on them, date and location - Shanghai. I think STDs are necessary for DW, especially out of the country.

ETA: From my to our

No, that is way too early. If you don't want to pay for/bother with STDs, you can just communicate the information to people as you talk to them normally.

Thank you all! and @km42118 it'll be at the Hard Rock in Punta Cana!

Hi! We are getting May 2018 in Riviera Maya - Destination Wedding is the way to go!

We set our date in January and sent STD in February (14 months in advance). Before I mailed STDs, I made sure our website was setup and our Travel contract signed with our travel agent. We actually had a few folks book after receiving STD!

I mailing our formal invitations in a few days (10 months in advance). If people plan to attend your wedding, they won't forget For our contract, guests must book their hotel by November (6 months before the wedding) or they won't get our discount rate, so it made sense to send formal invitations early.

Do what's right for you, your wedding, and your guests! if you have any questions about how we're planning our DW - feel free to reach out - happy to share our website and any tips we have. our Travel Agent (who specializes in DW) has done a great job of helping us sort through etiquette vs. what needs to happen for our specific wedding.

I would highly recommend avoiding Amanda's travel agent. Requiring guests to book half a year in advance is absurd! I used to work in that industry and the earliest we ever required bookings was 60 days out. The hotels only ask for 14-30 days, but my company always padded it a bit to make things run more smoothly on our end.

I think in the case of a destination wedding, a save the date is useful...

@ashley Me too! That's awesome!!

We did a dw in march of this year. We sent out save the dates a year out. Then we sent out an email with our wedding website with hotel info and that kind of stuff. Then 2 months prior to we sent out the actual invites.

Hi we are doing a DW in Montego Bay and we just sent out STD so that way if people can make it they will be able to save or budget and plan ahead of time. Wedding is not until June and we will be sending invitations out in April for guests so that they will not forget to RSVP. We got with travel agent and they made a wedding website for us to put on STD. Also look into Destination Weddings. Com , Apple Vacation do some research so you can get some deals for you and your guests. Vista print always has sale and our STD were from magnet street they have great destination wedding invitations and std that we loved.

I'm having a DW as well, and we're not putting all the information on the website just yet. We put travel and accommodation info, but we hide the RSVP function and the event timeline for now.

@Ashley - talk to folks who are actually hosting a DW wedding in the DR for advice. If folks are having local weddings, the timelines are way different! Good luck planning!

@StPaulGal - our travel agent is not absurd. We signed our contract in February and locked in 2017 rates for a 2018 wedding. In fact, researching DW, many hotels, especially in the Caribbean and Mexico, require guest to book 4-6 months in advance. They simply have to pay a deposit not the full balance. Guest can book after the deadline, but they won't get our negotiated group rate. The booking date is more to ensure the guests get the best rate, not so much for the count.

Several close friends and family have had DW and used various travel agents - all have very similar timelines to ours, by asking guests to book/pay deposits 4-6 months in advance. I have even been on the guest list of a wedding that sent an email asking us to book our hotel (8 months before the wedding) before invitations even went out.

I'm doing a DW as well and we are sending out the STD a year out and making sure they have the website on them. I also put a little card in with the save the date letting them know to keep checking the website as there will be room blocks and such available.

We created a wedding website that has the itinerary and our suggestions for flights and accommodations and put the URL on our Save the Dates, which we sent out last month. At least with the website, people can start planning and budgeting based off of the suggestions we provided. We plan to send our invitations late November/early December for our February wedding.

Hi! We are doing a DW in Cancun next May and like pp we sent our save the dates a year in advance with a link to the wedding website. I got nice postcard save the dates from Zazzle paid about $70 for 100 of them. Our wedding website has all the info of how to book through our Travel Agent, any events we plan on doing etc. I plan on sending formal invites in January as our resort requires all rooms to be paid in full by mid march. It's definitely good to give people enough warning in advance to plan for this as both our parents have received comments from people invited about us choosing somewhere so far. The more notice the better!

Oir DW is in Nov. We sent a "save the date" website link to immediate family in December. Then we sent our invitations in February. I know it's extremely early and doesn't follow the usual timeline, but it worked for us. Our room block will only be held until July1, so people needed to make a decision before the usual timeline. And, we had family already booking in Dec after sending the save the date link. We were limited on our guest list and I didn't want anyone passing the info on to someone who they thought was invited but actually was not.

Check out bestdestinationweddings[dot]com - lots of other DW brides to bounce ideas off of and collect other DW topics/ideas/etc