rsvp on Save the Dates for destination wedding?

Honestly, I don’t know how this could work. When having a destination wedding, couples typically send out STDs 8-12 months in advance. I don’t think most people will be able to accurately commit to whether or not they will be able to attend an out of state or out of country wedding that is a year away. Plus, so much can happen between that time and the wedding (pregnancies, new jobs, school, inability to take off work, important events with children, moves, unexpected expenses, etc.), I don’t think you are going to be able to get an accurate assessment for who will attend. That far out, people will likely just say they will go, then change their mind or have things pop up prior, and have to resend their commitment to attend.

People can’t give you a definitive yes or no a year in advance. This is only going to give you an inaccurate guest count.

You have to get your guest list finalized to those you cannot imagine the day without before save the dates are sent. Do not send B lists. Do not send obligation invites. You don't ask anyone to reply to a save the date a year ahead but can send the save the date with all important info out earlier than the standard 6 months at 8-10 months. Don't expect them to know for sure and most companies do not grant time off before 4 weeks from the date.. But you still send invites and rsvps at 6-8weeks.

Asking for commitments a year in advance just won't give you a very accurate idea. People will change their minds (in both directions), people might not know if they can get time off this far in advance, won't know if they can afford it, etc. It will probably cause you a lot of frustration in the long run as people's plans change.

Appreciating all the honest responses! I’ve had weddings where I definitely knew that I wouldn’t be able to go (e.g. due to graduations, vacations, other weddings etc) when I received the STD, so I want to give people a chance to opt out of receiving a formal invitation even if that may be a wedding faux pas.

This may help you a little bit...just an idea!


We’re doing a destination wedding and we put all of the guests we wanted to invite in a spreadsheet and gave everyone a probability percentage on the likelihood of them attending (based on previous conversations/our educated guesses), then summed up that column. Then that gives you an estimated amount of who would actually attend. It helped us to actually get real numbers, and we knew a safe number of people we were able to invite (which ended up being everyone we wanted to invite). we’d also update the probability as we heard new information from our guests.

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The tough part with this, is what if people change their minds? That will put you in a really awkward spot if they come back and say they can attend, and you no longer have room, so effectively they become "uninvited." Great example - one of my good friends told me she couldn't come like nine months ahead of time because her son's first communion was that same day. Fortunately, that date recently changed and now she can come! I don't know how I would have told her sorry, I gave your spot away. One of the most stressful things about wedding planning is not knowing who will actually come until only a month or two before the actual date. I think it just comes with the territory!

As a parent, if you are not allowing kids at the wedding, you can probably assume only one of the adults will come to represent the family or else neither will come unless you hire a babysitter for the event (and then you're still expecting the families to pay extra airline fees for their kids to still travel as they can't leave them back home alone), plus they will still be in school in May.

How many extra friends were you looking to invite? Destination weddings hardly ever get 100% turn out. This idea is pretty out of the norm, but maybe you could put your wedding website on your save the dates and then maybe ask them to do a pre-RSVP type of thing on the website. But it is extremely difficult for people to RSVP a year in advance. But if you’re only trying to add a few other friends, I can guarantee there definitely will be people that will give you a definite 100% no simply because they don’t wanna go to a destination wedding and spend the money, especially if they have children.

Actually… An even better option… Just pick the one aunt on your side and one aunt on your fiancés side that gossips the most. Tell them your situation and then have them spread the word to all of your guests. They will be so direct with it and will probably out right tell them “well if you’re not gonna go then you better tell them now” type of thing.... We all have this aunt in our family.

This might help! 😉

https://weddingdive.com/idea/percentage-invited-guests-attend-destination-wedding

I personally don't see how this would work because most people don't know their plans that far in advance.

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Thanks for all the feedback! This is the wording we ended up going with for our STDs. Thoughts?

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I'm having the same challenge and have to agree with what you said. It's hard getting definitive answers because its so far away but also my mindset it that the people who want to be there will be there. Most of my people haven't rsvp'd and I've updated my save the date so the information can be clear and some still miss it because their not reading in full detail. It's frustrating but I'm not going to let it ruin the fun in planning and whoever come will do this that. I will be there and my groom and that's all that matter.

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I'm having the same challenge and have to agree with what you said. It's hard getting definitive answers because its so far away but also my mindset it that the people who want to be there will be there. Most of my people haven't rsvp'd and I've updated my save the date so the information can be clear and some still miss it because their not reading in full detail. It's frustrating but I'm not going to let it ruin the fun in planning and whoever come will do this that. I will be there and my groom and that's all that matter.

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Hi,

I'm having the same thought process as you did. Did the RSVPs/wording to "opt-out" work for you all?

Thanks!