Save the dates or no?

Save The Dates are totally fine to skip! If you wanted to, you could reach out through phone call or text or email or in-person conversation to let your close friends and family know your wedding date ahead of time, and then just send out invitations 6-8 weeks before your wedding.

I sent all save the dates by email through my wedding website (I use Joy). It was easy and they were able to look at the wedding website for a glimpse at what we're planning so far. Out of the 70 or so that I sent, a couple of them went to the spam folder. But I was able to see whether or not the email had been opened on my guest list. So I reached out individually to those people and they found the email.
I think save the dates are important for your guests to plan. I know mine appreciated the heads up so they can put it on their calendars. Our wedding date is the last weekend of spring break for the school district here, so families need to plan their vacation around it if they plan to come.
I sent formal invites by mail to most guests, just because I wanted to. For about 10 who I didn't have mailing addresses for, I sent email invitations through Joy. All of them have opened their emails so I know they got them.

I don't think it matters. Do digital save-the-dates if you want to save money. We did two rounds of save-the-dates and people are still asking us when it is. 🤦🏼‍♀️ But invitations should be paper, or else people will forget about them or come underdressed because they think it's a super casual event.

Personally I am doing Save The Dates. About 90% of our family are out of state, and we just realized we're having our wedding during the largest hot air balloon festival in the world... yay. We want everyone to have heads ups sooner rather than later to start finding their accommodations!

We're using our Save the Dates to gauge the actual attendees prior to sending the formal invites. My fiancé's family has some out of town individuals who would have to fly in (my family is all across the country and we're doing a separate reception just for them) and my future MIL is planning on reaching out to the farthest away relatives to see if it's something they can swing (especially since we're getting married 2 weeks before Christmas). We still plan on sending those who say they aren't gonna be able to swing that a formal invite, but it's going to help us with seating ahead of times, and decide if there are people who don't get Save the Dates that we want to invite to the wedding itself.

My biggest feeling on literally every aspect of wedding planning? Tradition-smadition. Do what feels right and works for you. You will (hopefully) not be doing the whole wedding thing again, don't look back in 5 years and wish you had done something differently but didn't just because "tradition" dictated that you didn't.

Why do save the dates have to cost money? There are always free options that have existed for decades: phone call and word of mouth have been successful for many generations 6-12 months before the wedding and the guest list is set in stone before the venue is booked. Modern society now has the use of text and email which are also free.


Also they are sent to all guests. The idea that local guests don’t need to have a heads up to schedule time off is naive. Also once they are sent, you cannot revoke them without canceling the wedding and starting a new guest list.

Save the dates are optional. You can let the VIP's know via word of mouth about the event.

I would send formal invitations to everyone, not just some people. Problem with that is that the people that didn't get the formal invitation might think they were B-listed. You need to treat all of your guests equally.

Formal invitations go to all guests. Not everyone takes e-vites seriously and you may have many people not attend because they are waiting for actual paper invites to arrive. We have seen that a couple times as guests and it’s not fun for anyone.

We did a Save the date google poll first. Then sent out actual save the dates where guest pre-rsvp’d on Zola. Formal invites will go out in March. We did it this way because of all the guest flying in from other countries and in light of Covid as we know individuals plans will change. Plus we’re having it on a holiday weekend and we wanted to give GASTON enough time to figure out if our wedding with something that they wanted to attend in light of memorial day weekend

I would recommend save the dates, November is a popular month and people gear up for holidays and seeing family, so it's good for people to keep your date in the back of their mind for booking travel and budgeting. It doesn't have to be a formal STD either as a few have mentioned, a email STD is perfectly acceptable.

I wont be sending out save the dates and save the dates aren't always a must. I think unless you are having a destination wedding and you know some of your guest will need to save money to go, I would send them out.

I will be sending out formal invites to the moms and aunts because I know they save things like that and to all the cousins and close friends they will be getting digital invites.