When to send out invites and when to require rsvp

If I were you, I'd mail invites out a week or 2 before Thanksgiving.
I'm getting married March 28th, and planning on sending invites out somewhere in the Jan 19-27 range. And having them due back March 2. With a week to chase down those who failed to RSVP.

I would send your invites at the beginning of November to avoid them getting lost in the holiday mail. Then maybe make your RSVP date January 2 or something. That way you can start tracking people down after the holidays

I agree with Gen. I'd send them out maybe the second week of November or so and set RSVP date for the very beginning of January. Then you'll have a couple of weeks to call people who haven't responded yet.

I would disagree with others, your wedding is very close to the date mine was so I am empathetic to the holiday mail issue. I would do them the first week of December and ask for responses the first week of January. The longer lead time and response time you give people, the more they forget and you chase them down.

FWIW daughter's wedding was roughly the week before yours, this past January (so, third Saturday in January). Her invitations went in the mail the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week (about 8-9 weeks before the wedding), with Christmas day as the RSVP date (4 weeks to respond). On the RSVP date, we were only missing responses from 10 people (3 households). On the 26th we messaged those three and had everything resolved 2 days later (Dec. 28). Daughter's first numbers were due on January 4 (florist) and the final meal count was due January 11 (1 week before the wedding). That timeline worked really well for us -- "the holidays" didn't seem to have any impact.

I’m getting married November 15th. So I’m sending out my invites September 7th and requiring rsvp by October 25th

I'm getting married January 31, so I was thinking about the same thing in that I don't want my invite and RSVP lost in the shuffle of holiday mail. I was thinking of sending mine early/mid November and asking for reply by end of 1st week in January. I have a lot of out of state guests so I really need to know sooner rather than later. If out of state people can't make it, I'd like to squeeze in a local friend/ acquaintance if they're interested in coming.

View Quoted Comment I didn’t really think about that but it makes sense. I always forget about RSVPing unless the date is super close.

View Quoted Comment That’s great that most people responded on time, I’m worried about trying to track everyone down.