Ordering items for wedding

[Lillie09]

My wedding is in July 09. How far in advance should I order things like invitations, raffia fans, shells, ribbon, favors etc..

Thanks for your help!!

[ACDCDCAC]

i would say dont order them any earlier than you want to have to work around them at your house. we dont have any extra space at our house, so i was tripping all over stuff in the months leading up to the wedding. if you have a spare room or location at your house then order away! especially if you are worried that you might not be able to find something next year, and it might be something really important to you to have.

[ACDCDCAC]

also as far as ordering invites, check with the site you are ordering from and see how long for shipping/production. then send them out according to your plan.

[Amarillis]

I know where you are coming from.... you are just excited to get started.

 

I would say that the first thing you should do is start a wedding website. IMO this takes a while to get started, and to add content.

 

Then, circa the end of September - is send out save the dates - these can be really simple - just to let your guests know that you are going away to get married. We did this, and sent our engagment photo at the same time (March 2008 for a January 2009 wedding). Our guests really appreciated the heads up, and many started to save money right away. This also gave them the oppotunity to see our wed-site (which was still incomplete but many checked it out)

 

In the mean time, this time, find yourself a great travel agent, and negotiate out the pricing. When this is done, you can send out your real invite, and include you booking details - in your case I'd say you should do this by early January 2009.

 

When this is done, you could start thinking about buying stuff.... I totally agree with Abbie, buying stuff too early will result in mass amounts of storage! PLUS, you may change your mind on some stuff over the next year - it happens all the time!

 

Good luck, I hope this helps!

[anaderoux]

I started buying stuff when I had an estimate of how many people were going to my wedding, which was like 8 months before the wedding.

 

I sent the stds 6 to 8 months before and invitations a month before (but almost all me guests were mexican, the timing is a little different for americans)

[Lillie09]

Thanks everyone. I should wait to see who is coming because I don't really have a head count.

Hopefully 6-8 months before I will know so I can start ordering.

And I live in an apt with not storage space so I really don't have the room now.

[DanielleNDerek]

Did you send out STDs already? Most people started to let us know that they were either not going to make it, definately coming, or trying to make it within a month of receiving the STDs. That helped with our head count.

[Lillie09]

Yes I sent out my STD's in March. I'm still waiting for my cousins on my dad's side to respond. They act like I'm not getting married. They totally ignore the situation. I see them only a few times a year and I'm almost sure they are not coming but they won't tell me anything. This is 12 people plus the 5 on my fiances side that I'm waiting for out of my 55 guests.

Should I call them and ask even though I put in the STD letter that if you are thinking about coming can you give us a heads up so we can plan (not in those exact words..a lot more formal).

 

sorry it's off topic but I am waiting for these people so I can get moving a little more!

[DanielleNDerek]

It doesn't hurt to call them. Some people just assume you know they aren't going, even when you ask them for a heads up.