Save the dates...worth it?

Save the dates, like anything else, have pros and cons. Obviously the biggest pro is giving your guests a heads up that the wedding is approaching. The biggest con is that you're locked into a guest list 8 or so months before your wedding. They aren't a necessity unless you're having a destination wedding, lots of out of town guests, or a weekday or holiday wedding. You could also just send them out to VIPs and out of town guests so that your guest list isn't so permanent. If you do decide to send them, I would wait until 6-8 months before the wedding. 10 months is a little early.

We sent save the dates and have zero regrets. We had a very high RSVP accept rate (invited 113, 100 came) and I contribute a lot of that to sending STD's. They also really aren't very expensive. I think we paid a little under $100 for 65 STD's. That included custom envelopes and address printing. In my opinion, they are totally worth it.

As PPs have said, they aren't necessary but can be helpful. I would also note that not everyone on your guest list needs to receive a STD. We only sent them to our guests who are out of state or to close family members (our VIPs who are on the guest list no matter what). So, out of our guest list of 200, we only sent out 40 STDs (we will be sending out 100 invitations, for reference). This allows us a little wiggle room when it comes to invitations in case we need to make any cuts at the end.

Hi there! I just sent my save the dates but I did it online via Paperless Post and it was great! We got a good idea of who wanted to come to our wedding and we were able to get that information out to our family and friends for a fraction of the cost. I think I might have spent $30 on it. It’s also a good idea if you have a wedding website or registry you want people to know about. I was surprised that people looked at the save the date and went to our wedding website and purchased items from our registry months in advance

View Quoted Comment I really like the paperless idea! I never knew that was a thing!

View Quoted Comment Yes it’s really cool and saves a lot of money! The nice thing is that you can keep track of the invites...who opened it, which email bounced back...you can even ‘nudge’ the person if you haven’t heard from them. Maybe about 4 people on my list had theirs sent into their spam folder but it was really easy for me to notify them to check.

View Quoted Comment That’s something i think I might consider! Thanks (:

I found mine super cheap so i got them. But i don't think it's necessary to do them 10 months early unless most of your guests are out of town.

View Quoted Comment I have been told 8-10 months is ideal for save the dates.

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Everything I have about planning is 6-8 months before. If you send them too early, people might put them aside and forget about them.

View Quoted Comment I guess due to my circumstances with my wedding, 8-10 would be ideal for me. That must have been why I was told that time frame. Thanks for the information though.

We did them! We liked that guests got that early heads up to block that day off!

Save the dates are a great for several reasons:
1) They get people excited about your wedding!
2) It's a nice opportunity to share your engagement photos. 3) Out of towners and people with kids can plan accordingly.4) Those who know they definitely can't make it will probably let you know when they receive the STD. With this information, you can loosen your formal invite list to include plus 1s and B-listers.

So sending save the dates and invitations can become very costly when paying for them and then paying for all the stamps and everything. What we are doing is making a save the date and invitation combined. The front of it will be the save the date and the back of it will have all the details that the invitations would. To save money and not have to buy stamps for everyone to send their response back to us, we created a wedding website where our guests can RSVP on there. I am sending them out 3 months before the wedding. I announced our wedding on social media so most people already know the wedding is coming and I called all the family who doesn’t have social media like the grandparents. So I thought about it and I don’t think I will regret not doing both. Hope this helps.

No they’re not necessary. People have had weddings for decades without them and only an sending an invitation. Then STDs hit the scene for weddings over holiday weekends or destination weddings (which makes sense). But now they’re just another regular “thing” added on that everyone does... just because. So now couples feel like it’s a must, when it’s really not.


FH and I are having a destination wedding where 100% of our guests will have to drive at least 5+ hours each way (and have to spend the night) or fly and stay at least the night. So we’re sending STD’s as a courteous heads up since it’s not a local turnaround event, and requires more preparation for our guests.

I made my own on Shutterfly and spent $160 for magnets, envelopes and address labels for about 60 people. I didn't care what anyone's opinion is, it's an extra reason to show off my pictures and an excuse to tell everyone about it... again... lol what do YOU want and feel about them? As long as it doesn't break your budget, why not?

We did them because 99.5% of our guests were from out of town (yes, I did the math) and needed to make travel plans - but they aren't strictly necessary.