Destination Wedding Question!!!

Congrats on your engagement! We are having a destination wedding also- they are my favorite type of wedding! We went back-and-forth about STDs also. But ultimately we decided we should send them, for a few reasons. We wanted to give everybody at least a year notice since attending our wedding is going to require a lot more planning for everyone in terms of both time and finances. But sending an invitation a year in advance seemed way too early, and we were afraid people would forget about it or lose the invitation/information over the next year. It also meant people would forget to RSVP and we would be having to track everyone down to remind them when the day got close. So we decided to send out STDs a year in advance so everyone would be aware of the time, travel and financial commitment and could begin planning/saving accordingly. On the STD we included the date and city/state of the wedding, and our wedding website address (where links to book hotel accommodations can be found for those who wanted to book early). We will then send out our official invitations about 12 weeks out. We thought that would give people plenty of notice to make their final decisions and be able to RSVP with a definitive yes or no 6 weeks out (since we have to have final numbers to our venue and caterer 30 days out, and we wanted a 2 week buffer in case we have to chase anyone down for their RSVP or in case anyone changes their minds). I think the STD for a destination wedding is actually more important than for a local wedding because people need a lot more advance notice in order to save money and book travel arrangements.

1. Save the Dates aren't necessary. Since you'll be sending invites earlier with all of the booking information you can save your money and skip the Save the Dates.

2. I, personally, think 9 months is early for invites. Some people may not even know about work by that point. However, I've never been to a destination wedding so I'm not entirely sure on the timeline of that. I would guess anywhere form 4-6 months would be good. Since you most likely have some sort of room block your guests should be locked into a rate so they don't need to worry about that, and flight prices don't normally drop until that time frame anyways. Again, this is just me guessing.

Here is an article that may help you to navigate the ends and outs of destination wedding etiquette
https://www.brides.com/gallery/destination-wedding-etiquette-questions

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Thank you so much!!! I don't know anyone else whose had a destination wedding so I have so many questions! I also think sending save the dates with information available so they can book early, and then formal invites a few months out would be the best choice. Thank you again!

View Quoted Comment You’re so welcome :-) I have done so much research and planning on destination weddings over the past year! If you ever have any questions or need any resources, let me know!

I think save the dates are good especially if people need to plan to travel. Maybe do paperless post with a link to the website instead? And I think 4-6 mo that would be good. Jordana on the Betches Brides podcast is planning a destination wedding in Mexico and has great insight on this type of thing!

We are having a destination wedding in 2023. We're sending Save the Dates in March 2022. We wanted to also send along with the Save the Dates or include a tentative RSVP on our website to help with planning. The venue we are looking into wants a count of how many rooms are needed for the block in order to get a discounted rate. Since we don't know who will want to stay at the resort we were thinking a tentative RSVP would help us plan. Is this a good idea or should I just stick to an RSVP with the formal invitation?

A save the date is essential for any wedding and especially one where people have to travel. With the plethora of postponements from Covid, wedding dates are stacked on top of each other and guests need advance notice to prepare.


9 months is way too early to send invites. Your guests will lose and forget the invites because they will think they are save the dates and wait for one to arrive at the standard 6-8 weeks. Also, Covid aside, employers don’t give final schedules with requested time off before 4 weeks, when rsvps are generally due at the earliest.

We’re having a destination wedding, but in the states, and I plan to send save the dates a year in advance and then an invitation 10 weeks out or so. We want to give everyone plenty of notice so they can save/make arrangements, and I don’t want to send invites too early because I feel like people will forget to rsvp

Our DW is in Mexico in 2 months. We sent save the dates and that was all the info folks needed to book so we decided not to spend the $ to send the official invitations. If I could do it all over again I would just send the invites a year out and call it a day.

For a DW, the earlier the better. People need time to plan a trip.

We are doing a destination wedding on April 23, 2022. We sent save the dates this week with room block info and registry info. We are waiting to send invitations because people don’t know what will be going on a year from now so they can’t really rsvp no because things may change. Or they put the invitation somewhere and forget about it. So we are sending invitations in January