When to send invitations for destination wedding

It all depends on when deposits are due. We sent ours 2 months before the deposits were due which was at the end of Oct. Our invites went out August. This was just to give people enough time to have the money for the deposits. Our wedding isn't until June.

I don't know if I agree on the whole List A & B thing. You should really invite those you really want to be there and not "filler people" so you reach capacity. That it just what I get from you explaining lists A and B.

Goodluck!

No no, they're not filler people. It's the opposite. The majority of our initial 50 guests (A List) have verbally expressed serious interest in going. They will be paying their on way and will not owe us deposits. My fiance is a dj and knows a ton of people. He feels bad about not inviting some of them, so we decided that if some of our initial 50 decline, then we will invite those other friends who we couldn't invite initially.

I hate the A and B list thing too. I would rather invite all 75 at once, but I'm afraid that more than 50 will accept and we will be over capacity.

@Mexico2016 Thanks! That is helpful.

Thanks, I'll take a look

I would give the B list at least 4 months (that's what we're giving our initial invite list for an in-country DW). However, I'll also point out that I don't necessarily agree with having a B list at all. You may very well end up in the same situation if you invite only half the B's (because that's what you have space for) and they decline. At that point, do you invite the remainder of the B's?

If I were one of your guests, I would have to make arrangements with work and personal finances by March to go to Hawaii in September. Later than that, I could possibly make it work by chance but it would be a lot more difficult and more stressful. For such a big trip I would reccomend sending invitations as soon as possible.

As for the A list B list thing, I have to admit, I don't care if I'm Z list last choice if it means a vacation to Hawaii!

I sent mine out 3 months before my wedding for our destination wedding!

ETA - you might want to send out save the dates and in conversation about your guests receiving their save the dates you can get an idea of who will/won't be able to attend and can give you a better idea of how many you can invite to the wedding.

Ours is destination (3k miles) for about 95% of our list. I'm sending out save the dates 8 months in advance, and invites almost 4 months in advance. It's a bit out of the normal range which I believe is 3 months, but our hotel will release rooms 2 months out and most people have to make flight/work arrangements.

I went to a destination wedding in New Orleans, and I was nervous getting the invitation in time (didn't know if her invite list would change), which I think came about 6-8 weeks before the wedding. So I would definitely recommend 3+ months.

Sending mine out in two weeks for an April wedding in Kauai, however most are already booked to attend as they are family. I do have a few friends who have expressed interest in attending so we are sending out about 30 invites to the destination wedding, and about 250 to our post-wedding celebration which we are planning for July!