Is 8-9 weeks before wedding date to early to expect rsvp responses?

Invitations are usually sent 8 weeks before the wedding. When are you planning on sending your invites if you want people to RSVP that early?

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Doing some quick math, the dates would be as follows:
Save-the-Date: April-May?

Invites sent to give roughly 5 weeks RSVP time: July 4 (+/- 1-2 days)

RSVP 9 weeks before wedding: August 8 (+/- 1-2 days)

Wedding day: October 10

We do have some people being invited from several states away (we're in VA, they're in MA), but it's somewhere around 5% of our list.

View Quoted Comment STD timeline is good. 6 months is typical for those. But the invitation and RSVP dates are a little early. I got married in October and sent our STD’s in April, invitations 8 weeks before the wedding with an RSVP date of 2 weeks before the wedding.
I’d talk to your vendor and have them explain the 8 week guest count timeline. That seems awfully early.

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I thought that it's early too compared to everyone else saying they have a final head count date of anywhere between a week before up to a month. Our contract does state there is no exception to the cut off date for package changes. I'm under the assumption the 8 weeks is to allow time to recalculate everything and be sure all parties involved are on the same page since the vendor in question is all inclusive (cottage to stay in, food/beverage, flowers, special bride/groom perks, tables, et cetera).

Out of curiosity, did you have many guests who needed accommodations and/or childcare? Did that influence when you sent out invites?

8-9 weeks for RSVP date is way too early and is a burden and unnecessary stress on your guests. That's when you should be mailing your invitations.

View Quoted Comment It's a bit disheartening to think that a guest that we value enough to want to share a special moment with would find our potentially early request of information to be a "burden" and "stressful". If anything, I would've hoped the extra time would actually help to ease the stress of booking accommodations and finding childcare if they needed either of those.


While we hope to spend our day with everyone invited (that is why they are on the list), it wouldn't take many declines to drop below our package minimum. If we knew ahead of time and were able to go down a package, then we could put that $1-2k difference into a different wedding expense like photos and favors. I would certainly hope our guests would be understanding of that considering the stress we have been (and still are) putting our selves through to make this enjoyable.
I had also did a bit of forum diving after posting and came across something that makes sense to me: those interested should hopefully have already set aside the date when they receive the save the date.

I always find these threads funny because posters get super worked up about guests having to respond too early... (I don't understand, have they been guests in the past and been angry and burdened by RSVPing to make them like this??) If it's people close enough to you to be invited to your wedding, it is not at all a crazy thing to say "hey, the vendor has this especially strict rule so I would appreciate your RSVP before 8 weeks although I'm aware it isn't customary. If there's a special circumstance and you need to wait, just communicate it with me, no worries." And what will someone do? Send you hate mail? Yes, not all guests can know that early and they can communicate that with you! But some people already know they're coming or not but just RSVP last minute or after deadlines because they forget. Closer you can get to the real number is best for you. Just communicate. None of my guests would be burdened... 😂

View Quoted Comment Our wedding was a minimum of 1.5 hours from all of our guests, and we had some guests from out of state. That’s why we decided to send STD’s. So we had 2 hotels with room blocks, plus cabins (we got married in the mountains). We had a kid free wedding, so that was not a factor for us.


If your venue/vendors require that much notice then I would send your invites as planned and not stress about it.

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I agree with Meghan 100%

For what it’s worth, my venue required we commit to the inclusive (100 person “minimum”) or ala crate (pay per person) package upon signing the contract. We had an idea what our guest list would be, but not final and obviously had no clue what rsvp rate would look like. Ultimately we booked the inclusive package and fell short of the minimum guest count. Sure, we probably paid a little bit extra (because the venue still charged the 100 person inclusive rate, though the caterer CERTAINLY didn’t make 100 people’s worth of food 😑) that’s just the way it goes. At least you get flex until 8 weeks out! Build a buffer in your rsvp deadline... people are notorious for putting it in the mail on that date rather than planning for it to arrive in your mailbox by then. 😂

I think it's completely fine to do the July send out. I'm getting married on 10/10/20, sent out Save the Dates last month (the hotel space is limited and there's a college football game on our date), plan on mailing invites on 8/1/20 and making the deadline 9/4/20. Some would say my STD's went out way to early. To me, if something super important is happening on that date (that they would attend over your wedding) they should know about it by July... I don't think you're rushing them at all.

Invitations shouldn't be sent out any earlier than 6-8 weeks prior with a RSVP date approx 4-5 weeks prior. No one will know their schedule that far out. I cannot request off until 3 months from a date so I may RSVP yes but then not be able to come because my vacation request was denied or someone else got to that date before me. That is going to make planning things for your guests very difficult. So yes, that is too much to ask.

I don't think this is a problem! Especially since you need the numbers for your venue. Your guests will understand. I wouldn't see this as a burden if I was your guest -- I like having the advanced notice so we can plan to not schedule anything else! We had invites sent to us in December for a March 28 wedding and the RSVP was due Feb 2. We saw no issue at all!

Send the invites when you need to and don't stress.

If you ask people to RSVP too early, you will get more "no response" and have to track down more people. I would keep it at 4 weeks.

If people have to RSVP 9 weeks out I'm afraid you won't get accurate responses.

Are you willing to pay the venue minimum even if you have fewer guests? Say the the package you want is for 80-120 guests, you invite 100, and only 70 RSVP yes. If you are willing to pay for 80, even with fewer people, I don't see how it will be an issue for your venue/vendors, as they aren't going to be losing any money.

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It's stressful and a burden because people often don't know and can't determine for sure whether they will be able to attend an event more than a month out. It has nothing to do with how they feel about you or understanding your desire to get an early count.

Setting aside the date on your calendar doesn't mean that you can actually know ahead of time if it's feasible for you to get the time off from work, get the babysitters you need, afford the trip, etc. Frankly, it's for your benefit too if you don't have a too-early RSVP date. If it's 2+ months out, you're going to get people guessing about whether they can attend and giving you their best guess RSVPs, and you're going to have a higher number of people changing their RSVP later one way or the other when they're able to firm up their plans for that date.