Why you should reconsider sending out save the dates...

I sent them out because number one I was really excited to share the news that finally I was getting married!! LOL. But seriously my main reason was because I picked a Friday wedding date. I wanted people to have sufficient time to request the time off if they wanted to be there. It was a complete nightmare ordering them and finally getting them, but I am happy I did it. I have gotten a lot of nice compliments on them. There are always a few who won't say a word and that is fine. For us we wanted to do it and enjoy knowing everyone can share the news. We did the 3x5 magnets.

We actually did a "save the dat affair" which was our engagement party a year from the date of our wedding. The STD Affair was on 8/12/2011 and the wedding is 8/12/2012. We gave out magnets that had the date on it. Everyone loved them.

Yeah, our guest list is small and only family and very close friends. Most of the friends invited are in the wedding or dating someone in the wedding. If anything, just send your invited out a little earlier than what you had planned. But I do have to agree, Save The Dates are just an invite, to the invite. But, it also depends on your family I think. If they are whatever about them, then skip, if they are something that are normal for your family, then do them.

That's a really cute idea Patrice! I like the magnet idea. Wish I would have thought of it! Or maybe a sticker. That way people can put it on their calendar!

I sent it out about 9 months before the wedding. We had our photos on them.

People loved them, and it gave plenty of time for people to get travel plans, time off work, decline other invites, etc.

I had 0 problems with our save-the-dates, and we sent them out over 100 of them. No one thought they were an invite (we put "formal invite to follow") and everyone told us how awesome and cute they were (magnets). I think they were useful for out of towners and people w/ difficult jobs.

I sent them and I agree they were pretty much a waste. Most people were confused about them! -_-

I had mix reviews about the Save the Date, some was excited to get them others thought it was the invite as well. The fact I did a message in the bottle save the date did not help either. A lot of people told me they were scared to open them.

I sent out them because majority of my family lived oot and needed plenty of notice. It did cost a lot and people really appreciated esp those who has kids and/or odd hours.

I printed them myself, and bought the paper from Michaels. I also used that paper for my wedding invites and information cards.

How many people are oot. i would to say probably 40 out of 68 were oot.

I don't see how giving people extra time to plan for something would be a bad idea. Some people are just weird, but I don't see anything wrong with being polite.

I skipped the STDs and personally spoke with those that I knew would need to make travel & schedule arrangements.

My friend sent out a save-the-date e-mail... much cheaper!

I don't think we will be sending them out. All of our guests are from the area, so there are no travel plans necessary. I personally think it's a waste if it's not a destination wedding and there are not any OOT guests (you can just tell people who you are close to who you think will need to know the date well in advance).

We are also not sending STDs because we will probably be adjusting the guest list until the invites are sent.

We sent ours out last week and have gotten great responses back so far! We did have to explain what it was to some of our German guest bc it's not common here but they all appreciated the heads up to be able to make the travel plans. Our wedding is a DW and a lot of people are coming from Germany to the US so a STD was necessary in order to give them enough time to plan their travel. Were also getting a lot of hits on our website but only a few have signed the guest book so far.

Edit: I did not send them out to our "B list" , we want to see how many of our family & close friends plan to come & then we can just send invites to our B list (most of the B list don't require travel so they didn't need a 10 month heads up anyway).

We didn't send them out because its just more money, and we are only have 40 close friends and family so we just tell them the date and promise an invitation soon. I'm glad we didn't because we ended up changing venues and cutting our guest list by 35 people! Whew! Dodged a huge bullet there.

We sent them, ended up wishing we hadn't though, but for a different reason..

My dad added on a lot of his friends from work and things even though I was paying for them, he contributed a bit..By the time we booked other things, paying, you see the little things really added up..I was wishing I had been more firm/stood my ground with him..we had a guest list of like 130ish (after all the plus ones)..DS wanted a small wedding, My idea was about 75..lucky for us we ended up only having like 90 that could make it so it wasn't as overwhelming budget wise. I wish we would have just done invitations but sent them out earlier and no STDs.

Nobody was confused by the STD though. But it really is the truth that the easiest way to cut costs is cutting the guest list!

I guess it all depends on your location/culture.

We're sending them because that's what everyone in our family/group of friends have done and also because we are getting married on a Friday. We want to give the people we definitely want there plenty of notice (especially since we have a lot of out of towners) sio that they can come!

We are sending them because everyone is out of town and i won 150 of them for free

I sent them and haven't had any confusion, though now i'm kinda wishing i'd put "formal invitation to follow" on it. Didn't really occur to me that people would be confused because everybody i know sent out save the dates.

i think save the dates are the best idea ever, because for me 6-8 weeks in the summer is not always enough notice to clear a weekend for a wedding.

i should add that my future in laws are Irish and had to explain to their Irish family what the STD was. she wanted me to send actual invitations out to them when i sent the STD, which i had to let my FH know was just not going to happen.

STD are very common in my family and are very necessary. No one seems confused by them but they always say "formal invite to follow". His side it's not something really done so his parents called or emailed his guests. We basically did an email STD so they could just click on a hyperlink to our website with the necessary travel details.