When is too early to ask for Rsvp?

We found the standard advice of sending invitations 8 weeks prior to the wedding date worked out extremely well (and, for us, that was Thanksgiving, since the wedding was mid-January -- even accounting for the holidays, it worked very well). Our first "guaranteed" numbers were due to a vendor 2 weeks before the wedding date, so the RSVP date was a little over 3 weeks before the wedding date. I strongly caution you against sending invites super early and setting the RSVP date really early. Read old posts and I think you'll find in most cases that does NOT work. People don't know what their plans are months in advance and if you send invites out really early people put them aside thinking, "this isn't till Sept! I'll deal with it later," and then forget about it and don't answer you at all. Even with our very "standard timeline," probably almost half the guests didn't RSVP until the last week (and we had to follow up with 10 guests/3 households after the due date -- out of 127 invited). Just because you WANT the numbers early does not mean people are going to respond. Also, if you attempt to "force" people to RSVP early, it increases the odds that they might change their mind, possibly resulting in last minute requests to attend after originally saying, "no," and a potentially large number of "no shows" the day of. Try to be patient! Do your best to "guestimate," so you can move forward with tentative plans, but the absolute earliest I'd set an RSVP date is a month -- and that would only be if there is a really early vendor due date. Good luck!

Our wedding is July 27th but asked for RSVPs the 20th of May. We didn't send STD so we knew we wanted to send early, and it gave 2 months or so for people to respond. We also have a lot of out of town guests who will have to fly so it was important that we asked early in order to give them time to find flights. We also aren't going to ask people "are you coming?" until around a month before. So far, we are only waiting on 32 responses out of 237 which I think is nice. Realistically, there are lots of people who will know way in advance, and there are others who won't. If I were you, I would shoot for August 1st. It is a little over 1 month. Anything more than 2 months is too long.

Invitations should be sent 6-8 weeks before the wedding date, 10 weeks at the absolute earliest. RSVP date should not be before a month before the wedding date. When does your caterer need the final number? It should be 1-2 weeks before your event. Set your RSVP date 7-10 days before that date to give yourself time to follow up with guests. In terms of planning and budgeting, assume that everyone you invite is coming until you hear otherwise.