Save the dates + official invitations, or...just Std?

The std is to simply tell people to hold the date on their calendar. An actual invite is when you are sending guests details about the event, such as time, location, meals, etc. and asking them if they will attend or not.

If you need to skip one of these, you would skip the std. you can’t expect guests to rsvp for an event that they haven’t formally been invited to.

If that's the case I would just skip the STDs and only send a simple invite with the link to RSVP on them. People wont think to respond to a save the date because they're essentially the placeholders.

Save the dates aren’t actually inviting someone to something and I would expect people to be very confused if they received a save the date with an RSVP. If you aren’t sending a RSVP and just expect people to go to your wedding website and know to respond then that’s going to add a headache and a lot of work on your end following up with people. Also save the dates are sent out 6-8 months in advance and you won’t want people to respond that early because people’s plans could change. If you’re trying to avoid an unnecessary cost than skip save the dates and just stick with sending invites 2 months before.

I was thinking of doing the same thing... I want to include our wedding website on my sdt and so people can RSVP in there... but I’m not sure on what to do because I also want to save $$ but I know most people won’t know if they’re going a year in advance...

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Wendy that was my thought process too.

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ASMini914 That's true... but what's nice about the website is that it does include ALL of that info, and it's fairly easy to navigate. They just search their name, click yes or no, and add what meal they want (I tested it out). I also have it set to send me notifications when someone RSVP's, plus it's linked to the Wedding Wire planning tools, so I don't foresee having much of an issue with keeping track of anybody who wants to attend

You can just do an invitation with a link to your website for the RSVP. As others have said, the save the date would be the one to cut out of the 2. Save the dates are typically sent like a 8-12 months in advance. No one is going to RSVP to an event at that time. You send invites 6-8 weeks in advance. Just send the invites with an online RSVP.

Kelly makes a good point. We received a STD with a website on it. We never got an invitation. Turns out, there was no invitation but there was no indication of this on the STD. So, we never RSVP'D. We were never going anyway but I kind of felt weird. I hope that person doesn't think I'm a jerk but I had no way of knowing.

Electronic STD with just the date and location "formal invitation to follow" and then send out invitations with electronic RSVP. We used anRSVP.com.

Why do you think you should skip an invite and not skip the STD? I'm just wondering what you feel like you're gaining by sending an STD with the website on it instead of sending an invitation? It sounds to me like sending an invite with the venue, address, date, and wedding website where people can RSVP is what you're trying to do? You don't have to include a paper RSVP in the invite. I will be sending out STD around january for my oct wedding. and then I will follow it with an invite that says "please RSVP on our website". People will be very confused or think their invite got lost in the mail if you ONLY send the STD. Also as other posters have said, sending an STD or the invite more than a few months (3 maybe?) in advance will be frustrating because most people don't know 10 months in advance if they can attend the wedding and if they get the STD 10 months in advance and go to the website where they see that there won't be an invite, they'll forget to RSVP a few weeks before the wedding because so much time has gone by since they got the STD in the first place.

Professional planner here-

The rule is to send out save the dates if you have a lot of out of town guests coming or if it is a destination wedding. You also have the option of sending out save the dates to just the people coming from out of town. If you don't have a lot of out of town guests coming send the invitations two months before the wedding.