Invitations and rsvp deadlines

So our wedding is October 7th and I initially planned on mailing our invitations July 7th but after reviewing information in various websites and inquiring on this forum, I decided it was too early. We are going to mail them the week of the July 19th with a rsvp deadline of August 29th. Our venue (also includes catering & bar) requires a final headcount 30 days out. This will give us just over a week to account for stragglers and four weeks to finalize all details with vendors.


Typically invitations are sent 6-8 weeks from the wedding day or 12 weeks if it’s a destination. Do whatever you feel comfortable with at the end of the day.

Also our wedding was postponed from October 2020 to October 2021, so like you, our guests have been without communication since we sent out the New Date cards. People are asking and seems like getting anxious for details!

Sept 2020 to Aug 2021 here. We sent save the dates, then change the dates. I decided to send our invitations at the 9 week mark since there was little communication between change the date and invite. I made the RSVPs due a month before our wedding date to give me 2 weeks to to hunt people down before head counts are due. 90%+ are out of towners with most within a 3 hour drive. I consulted with WW community and all pretty much said not before 10 weeks.

I just mailed out invitations out for our October 2 wedding, I say go for it. Some will say it's too early but I think it's better to be early than late!

We postponed in May 2020 from Aug 2020 to Aug 2021. I also started getting questions about 6 - 8 months out, like you. And we're also heavily a destination wedding - 2/3 of our guests have to fly here. We decided to send out invitations 3 months early and it worked well for us. I mailed invitations May 1 with an RSVP date of June 30. We had only about 4 couples who were late on the RSVP. The only thing I wish we did differently was move the RSVP date up earlier in June, maybe about 2 weeks earlier. If I needed to, June 30 didn't give me enough time to send out a second round of invites and also get my calligrapher names/table assignments for her deadline. Thankfully we came in right at our adjusted guest count as expected.

Invites go out at 6-8 weeks with a typical deadline of 3-4 weeks. It should only take a few days to contact all of those who didn’t yet reply if you start the evening of the due date. If they do not respond when you contact them, mark them as a no. Then turn in the final tally to your caterer at 3-4 weeks. No one needs that information before 4 weeks.

If you send invites earlier than 6-8 weeks, the information will get lost and forgotten, plus people will be under the impression you are doing tiered lists. The same applies if they sent at 5 weeks or later: people will think they are your 2nd or 5th choice and prefer to not be invited in that case.