How important are save the dates?

You don't have to have them. It might be nice for your OOT guests, but other than that no you don't need them.

We have a lot of OOT guests and decided to do them. We ordered the magnets from Vista print over Black Friday. We received 500 magnets for $110 and they were regularly $300. I'm happy with my decision.

For a local wedding, they're completely unnecessary. Even for a DW, they're really not necessary, as you can give a heads up to any VIPs via phone.

That said, we are doing STDs for our DW largely because we only need a few (no more than 10), and because we found a really cute, really inexpensive idea for them. We aren't doing the STD cards that everyone sends. I think we will have maybe $15 invested total by the time they're done.

I think it depends. I originally thought, no save the dates are just an extra cost I don't need. Now I'm sending them because one of my courtesy blocks ends before invitations will even go out and over half our guests will need a hotel. Also myself working in a hospital, I appreciate a notice well in advance. Our schedules come out six weeks at a time and any requests need to be in way sooner than that or you're not going to get the day off. Sure, you can guess you will be invited but a std is a nice way to know that you aren't just asking for a day or weekend off "in case."

We love ours and thought they are great. And they turned out to be necessary.

We plan to do them as well. Since we are getting married in the summer, we want to make sure everyone knows ahead of time so they hopefully don't make vacation plans then. You can make them cute by getting magnets to go on the fridge!