How to handle invitations/save the dates

My fiance and I are planning a destination wedding and don't know what to do about the save the dates/invitations.

Do you send save the dates to everyone you want to invite, no matter if you know they aren't coming? I don't want family members or friends to be offended not to get a save the date if we can't foresee them making the trip. Should we or our parents tell everyone what we're planning and see if they're interested in attending first?

Our wedding will not be until June 2011 but we want to give guests as much advance notice as possible to plan and save money.

Thanks!

We sent invites and save the dates to everyone! No matter what. Even if you know they wont be able to come it is proper etiquette to invite everyone and they will RSVP no. And you never know the people who say they wont or cant come usually end up coming. SO I wouldnt rule someone out automatically.

So send everyone the Save the dates and everyone an invite.. IMO.

We did not send invitations. We sent Save the Date cards to everyone followed by a letter with the details on our wedding including travel plans, deposits, etc. Between the Save the Date cards and the letter we knew who would be able to join us and did not see the point of spending extra $ on invitations.

We've done something similar to Sportsdog2 where we printed STD postcards a la VistaPrint as well as a letter including travel plans, deposits and a 2pg description of the resort for those who either weren't internet savvy or who needed the extra encouragement who we'd like to go but wasn't sure. Those who we were intending as announcement purposes only just got the postcard that has the website on it just in case they decide to come.

We'll follow up with phone calls rather than formal invites as well as Canadian postage kills ya in the end.

We DID NOT send out save-the-dates to everyone. This is only because we are having a cruise wedding are limited to the number of guests we can have. We did not want to send out 100 STD's, then have the majority respond "yes" when we are only allowed to have 50 guests. What do you say to the guests then, "oops, we are un-inviting you"?

We came up with an A-list and B-list of people to invite. Of course, some of those on the A-list were those who we were "obligated" to invite like aunts and uncles (even if we knew they were not going to be able to attend due to illness, etc.). We explained in our cover letter and also on our website that we were not able to invite everyone because of our guest limit. Here is the link to my STD's http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...e-dates-49301/. We included "preliminary" RSVP post cards with our STD's to get a preliminary estimate. Those that said "no", left room so that we could move on to our B-list. This is how we handled it. It may not be "proper etiquette", but it is what we had to do to make sure we keep our guest count at or under our limit.

When we send out our formal invitations in January, we only plan to send them to those that RSVP'd "yes" to our preliminary RSVPs and to those "obligated" invites (aunts, uncles, grandparents that cannot attend).

All that being said, if you do not have a guest limit or budget restrictions, send out STDs and invites to everyone you would like to invite.

1. We sent STD emails to EVERYONE - so our guests could know our date/resort and could get in contact with our travel agent for quotes.

2. Then we sent out STD magnets to EVERYONE (including those that don't have email addresses).

3. We are in the process of sending out our Passport invites/AHR RSVP cards to EVERYONE. Then we will include our wedding brochure in the invites of the people that are traveling to Mexico with us (about 20 couples).

That should cover all bases!

Good Luck!

~ Erica

Why is it proper etiquette to send invitations to family members who have already "opted out" of the trip and wedding altogether? IMO, if they already RSVP'd "no", then it would simply be a waste of paper and money (and pretty ribbon! ) to send them an invite. :S

We are sending out save the dates and invitations to everyone. We weren't sure who would be attending and wanted them to be able to make the choice. I'll be sending out a tips sheet prior to departure only to those who will be attending.

We just sent out our Save the Dates to everyone. I am still not sure how to do the invitations, but it looks like we are going to add the invite to the AHR...that way everyone can know about all of the events (wedding AND AHR).

It's tricky, but I think that if you just send it to everyone, no one can say "why would you assume that I wouldnt go"...you know what I mean?

We just sent out a Save the Date E-mail to everyone.We will be sending out formal invitations about three months before our wedding. They will include an RVSP return cad that will give them the option to say yes or no to the DW and yes or no to AHR.