Send Invitations 6 - 8 weeks in advance of the wedding? Why so little advance notice?

IDK who made that rule but I am with you! I'm such a Type A that I like to plan things way in advance! So if I am going to a wedding I want to know so that I can plan to buy the gift, have it wrapped, figure out what I'm going to wear, etc. We're definitely not following that rule at all!!!

I think the less time people have to RSVP the quicker they are to respond. RSVPs are hard enough to get back to begin with. Letting people hold on to them for 3 or 4months forget about! They will get lost in the shuffle. IMO your guest list should be set before you send out the STD or at least have an A and B list.

Well, consider people like my parents. I love them dearly, but they would lose their heads if they weren't attached. 6-8 weeks means the invite gets stuck on the fridge, and the RSVP goes back.

Isn't all the planning (flights, hotels, etc.) why STDs are sent out 10-ish months in advance?? I wonder who invented the STD because didn't it used to be just an invitation? Anyways...if you're only sending out and invitation, no STD, then i would definitely send them out earlier.

We just got an invitation to my cousins wedding in the mail last week, and my mother has already misplaced it. Although I am a planner and want everything done sooner I agree that people would forget to RSVP or like in my mothers case, lose it, if they had more time!

Do what works for you. This is one rule I had to ditch for my guests traveling from Ireland. At the time we sent our STDs (which was a big waste of money for the Irish guest as they are not familiar with the concept), my FMIL did not tell us there would be two other weddings happening at the same time as our own wedding (one on the same day). So, if we wait for the 8 week mark, we would run the risk of not having enough time to put together a list B (something we hadn't planned on initially). We sent out our invites already and we are already getting responses back (as there are some people who simply have to attend the other events so can't come to our own). This is really helping us to get a sense of the numbers and when we do send the U.S. invites out (which we plan to do on the standard 8 week timeframe), we will know if we need to add a few B list attendees.

I have seen many posts on here where the RSVP's whether sent close to the date or further out, still aren't being returned. I think that is just a different issue all together. I had to send my RSVP's early due to having to have a final head count early for the venue. I only did online RSVP and many of the guest have already said that "you know Im coming, so I dont need to RSVP". I have heard that alot.

Many of our guests, immediate family members wouldnt accept the STD as an official invite and therefore did not start to make reservations until they received the invite. Gotta love family.

I didn't read the other posts, but I'm assuming you do it at such little notice since a lot of people don't know what they're doing too far in advance. If I were having a birthday party I wouldn't expect someone to RSVP over 2 months in advance, since they don't really know WHAT they're doing that weekend.

I think the 6-8 week rule was made 'back in olden times' when families were not scattered all over the world (everyone lived in the same town) and personal calendars were not as full as ours are today.

Our people would just stuff them in a drawer and forget all about it if we had sent them too far in advance.

If we knew people were coming from afar, we called or emailed them (or had FS' parents call) to let them know about the date and to go to the website for info. If your wedding is under 100 people (ours was 90), STDs aren't really necessary.

Good thought Nancy. That does make sense.

Our wedding is about 180 folks from all over the US (Hawaii) included.

I was just really wondering what everyone else thought about the time frame. I do think people would lose the RSVP's, etc. which is why I did online or call and didnt do the mail back. They have been regularly visiting our website and are pretty comfortable with that now. I sent out 96 invites on 4/6 and have received 26 responses of accept so far. They have a deadline of May 15 due to having to have our final count in on June 3rd. I think that is pretty good.