Invitation Confusion

Hello ladies!

My FI and I have been researching and contacting TA's for the last few months trying to get a decent quote and pick our resort. I haven't really thought much about invitations and how we are going to tell our guests about booking information yet because I have been so worried about the prices that were coming in for our 2010 wedding. Well, we have finally received a great quote and think we may be ready to book. My question is, how have you girls told your guests about your wedding? We sent out save the dates a few months ago just to let every one know when we were getting married, so they could start saving. And we just had "Mayan Riviera" as the location. Now, I would like to send them all the booking information, etc. Do I send that in the invitations? Or do I send out an email first or something so that people can put down their deposit?

The thing is, it will take me forever to decide on invites, and then for them to get here, and I am trying to save money since we have a tight budget so I'm hoping to do DIY, which will take me forever (LOL), so I don't know if I can make my guests wait that long, and if we can wait that long to find out who's coming... ugh. I guess I should've thought of this sooner?

I'm also wondering about the AHR, do you send out a separate invite to that? Or do you include that in your destination wedding invite?

Sorry this is so long, but I am so confused!!!

Thanks for any help,

 

Cara

CaraW

One thing you could look into is getting a free website where you can update friends and family of any information you need to get to them. I used myweddings.com. You can do so much information distribution with a web site. And you can even put music to it! This will save you from sending out another mailing.

Get folks email addresses too.

Have you considered passport or boarding pass invites? While they will take some time to complete via DIY, there is plenty of room on these to give guests lots of info. Then you could include your wedding website on the invite for further info and updates!

Good idea! Ok maybe I will just do that then.
Hmm.. so if I send out an email or post the booking information on the website, then what would be included on the invitations? We wouldn't really need anyone to RSVP because they most likely would have already put down their deposit after the email.
So would I just include the resort information in the invitation, and the AHR info? And my RSVP card would only be for the AHR?

I've considered this, and I do love the passport & boarding pass invitations, the only thing is I'm not sure whether I should send an email now and have everyone put down their deposit, because we do want them to do that as soon as they can, and then send out the boarding pass or passport invites, and if we include an RSVP card with that or not.

I didn't want to give the guests too much information at once. So I decided to send out STD's a year before the wedding.

 

Then about 8-10 months before I'm going to send out a brochure that I'm making through Vista print that includes info. about travel, location and prices. By then I will have also decided on a TA and we can try to make arrangements for group travel and give everyone time to save $$$.

 

Regular updates on a wedding website definately helps too!

I just recently booked with Moon Palace in Cancun. Our date is June 19,2010 and I have already booked the rooms there so I will have a link on our wedding website. I decided to send out invitations instead of save the date because the majority of people should start sending the deposits for the rooms. The only thing that I might send three months before the wedding date is a reminder to pay the full amount if it is not paid in full.

I think getting information out sooner rather than later is the best (I too, take a lot of time thinking and deciding on items like invitations, etc.).

I think email is a viable option these days, and perfectly acceptable, especially if you have some key information that is absolutely immediate to share.

 

I would send your guests the key information -- location, how to book rooms, where to fly into, etc. and also put this information into the website and send out both the info in the email and the website and include in your invite (if you have room). Believe me, it doesn't hurt to repeat information.

 

I have found also that I am getting a lot of "one-off" emails / phone calls anyway b/c not everyone reads what you have written on your website.

I think this is how it is with destination weddings.

 

Send the email now b/c time is of the essence.

I have sent out emails, and have also received them from friends who have had destination weddings letting people know about where to book the hotel and also alerts to when flights are cheap. I think we need to take advantage of email to communicate!

If I was a guest, I would want to know now how to get everything done so I could share your special day!

I am somewhat in the same boat! I have just received a great quote for April 2010, but the thing is....its only valid for 7 days - which doesn't give me time to get anything printed! So I think I am going to reach out to everyone via email or phone to get everyone to book and than follow up with a formal invite of some kind that directs people to our website for details. I hope that works!

Here is what we did.

 

 

Sent a Save the date email. (10 months before) Had all the resort info, date etc.

 

Then sent an Evite asking everyone to RSVP. (7 months before) We had 31 people RSVP'ed and all but two have booked so we have 29 total. We did not send RSVP cards, since we had everyone RSVP on Evite. Pingg is a good site too as an alternative to Evite.

 

Then we sent Boarding pass invites 1 1/2 months before only to the people that said yes to the Evite. Only needed to send out 17 invites. 30 Rsvp...couple and families. We also sent the boarding passes to the 2 that RSVP's that have not yet booked...and they most likely won't book. But just in case, did not want to leave them out since they did RSVP.

 

We are having an AHR in August. So we sent out seperate invites just this week to everyone invited including all those attening the DW. So a total of 100 invites. It was an annoucment about our DW/ invite to wedding celebration with details, directions insert and RSVP postcard (saved a bit in postage!).

 

This has worked perfect for us.

I purchased the boarding passes from a vendor and my MOH made my AHR invites ( she is amazing and so creative) so I have done this very cost effectively.

 

Good luck!