Invitations

6-8 weeks before the wedding if it's local. 8-12 weeks before the wedding if it's a destination wedding. Then have your RSVP date 1-2 weeks before your final headcount is due, so you can follow-up with stragglers.

Invitations are usually go out 2 months before. Anything sooner than earlier than that might be too early. What is the date that your checklist says?

We sent our save the dates 10 months out and invites 3 months out. I think traditionally 2-3 months out is fine. But we just got an invite in the mail this week for a May 24 wedding (but that is a holiday wedding and they didn't send save the dates) so I guess whatever works!

It says 2-3 months before

I think it will be fine if you send them early February! I sent out STD's in mid January for my October wedding. I plan on sending out invites the first weekend of August with an RSVP date of September 4th. Three months seems pretty standard to me!

Unless it's a major destination wedding (like international travel), eight weeks will REALLY be plenty early, so around the first of March at the earliest. Regardless of when you send them, the majority of your guests will RSVP at the last possible minute or you'll have to follow-up with them after the deadline because they ignored you completely. The earlier you send them outside that 8 week window, the more likely people will receive them at think, "that's not till MAY, I'll take care of it later," and increase the odds they forget about it completely. Good luck!

8 weeks before. If you send them too early, people won't RSVP and you will have to track more down.

My personal definition of a destination wedding is a wedding where guests will have to make travel arrangements like flights or hotel rooms. Like for example, my wedding is local for almost all my guests because everyone lives about 30 minutes away. But for some of my distant relatives, it's a destination wedding because it's a 3 or 4 hour drive. So unless they wanted to drive back that night (a total of 6-8 hours in the car in one day), I'm assuming they'll get a hotel room. I've also heard that it can be considered a destination wedding when it's 100 miles or more from where you live.

To me a "destination wedding" is if significant numbers of guests are traveling long distances, especially international travel that will require passports, etc. Daughter & SIL invited 127 guests. Seven guests were international (but we knew only two were attending) and about 38 were out-of-state. Daughter sent all international and out-of-state guests an email as soon as the date was set (17 months in advance), and sent STD's to all VIPs and out-of-area guests about 6-7 months before. The invitations went in the mail exactly 8 weeks prior (Thanksgiving week) for a mid-January wedding. Despite "major holidays and holiday mail," eight weeks was PLENTY of time. On the RSVP date (10 days before first numbers were due; also, December 25--CHRISTMAS DAY) 95% of guests had responded to the online only RSVP. The 10 who missed the deadline represented three households, and daughter and SIL had their responses within 3 days, after following up. Many brides on this forum were convinced "because of the Christmas holidays" they needed to sent their invitations for a January wedding in Sept or October.... I'm pretty sure they did not need to send them that early, and that they did not have the timely responses they were hoping for. For most weddings, the B&G care a great deal about the wedding, but, honestly, many guests may not understand getting an invitation for an event 3+ months in advance.

I believe 3 months before is when you are to send them out. 6 months for save the dates.

Invites usually go out 2 months before (about 8 weeks). Our venue's head count deadline is 3 weeks before the wedding so I want to have our RSVP date about 10 days before that, so we'll probably send out our invites closer to 9 weeks ahead of time, just for a little extra lead time.