Super Casual Invitations - Bad Idea?

[jacarita]

Hello fellow destination wedding-ers!

 

I've been doing a bit of research on here since I got engaged about 3 weeks ago but decided to sign up for myself! We're planning a destination wedding in January 2016 (still super far away, I know!).

 

Here's my question/issue/concern:

 

According to my travel agent (Flight Centre), 12-14 months is a good amount of notice to give for a destination wedding. She said anymore time and people may tend to put off paying a deposit or forget altogether and make other plans. Once we finalize a resort, we're able to pay the deposit for us and then reserve 15 rooms at the same rate as us. So we're obviously going to need to let people know they're invited, which is where save the dates come in handy. However, I'm looking to avoid sending 100+ save the dates, followed by 100+ invitations as we're on a pretty tight budget and both feel there are more important things we'd rather spend money on. I'm assuming we won't even have a specific wedding date/time/location at that time, so it'd be pretty much impossible to send out the actual invitations this early.

 

We were thinking of sending a very casual invitation (like a postcard save the date but a bit more specific) to all invited guests, which would include the week we're going, resort, travel agent information, addressed to John Smith and Guest or John Smith and Jane Doe and family, etc etc. along with a wedding website which we could then keep updated as we get more information (like the specific date and time and reception information). Then, instead of sending a more detailed invitation to all of those same guests (even though only 20 will actually be attending), we could just include the specific information in a welcome pack or mail it out only to the guests who are coming.

 

We aren't very formal and it's going to be quite a casual week/wedding so I'm not too worried about traditional wording or RSVP cards and inner and outer envelopes and things like that but I'd love some opinions!

 

Thanks

[MrsCtoB]

Sounds like a great idea to me! Pretty much along the same lines of what we did...save the dates about a year before with general info. Area, date, resort, website. I wanted to do exactly as you said and only then send out more information or an "invitation" if you will to those who have deposited but my FI didn't agree to that. He felt like the save the date being a year before the DW left room for people to forget/not view website and not realize deadlines etc. so we ordered invites. I pick my battles! Good luck

[beckys98]

That is exactly what we are doing! We did a STD earlier this month for our June 2015 wedding, we'll keep the website updated, and then just send some additional details/travel information to those who have put down a deposit.

 

We are using Appy Couple for our website and I can send messages through it to invitees. I'll probably have to send a few reminders about the deposit as we get close to the deadline. People have started to RSVP, but no one has actually done the deposit yet.

 

Congrats and happy planning!

[kmk2016]

we did a version of this for our February 2016 wedding. We sent out boarding pass invites that contained our website, our RSVP deadline, basic booking information and the destination and date. We made our RSVP deadline the same as our booking deadline (Ours is a Canadian Package and allowed guests to book with a $150 deposit to hold the great package pricing we received... we were given this pricing for 90 days). Our invites went out at the start of July, and our RSVP date is September 21st. We have 61 people booked so far so it must have worked!
 

We will send a reminder via email to all guests who havent RSVPd yet- a week before the deadline. We are sending a THANK YOU postcard to everyone that placed their deposits... and then will do a larger passport invitation and travel package after final payments are made in October 2015.

 

Website is key in this scenario!

[BrideToBeJolie]

Hello fellow destination wedding-ers!

 

I've been doing a bit of research on here since I got engaged about 3 weeks ago but decided to sign up for myself! We're planning a destination wedding in January 2016 (still super far away, I know!).

 

Here's my question/issue/concern:

 

According to my travel agent (Flight Centre), 12-14 months is a good amount of notice to give for a destination wedding. She said anymore time and people may tend to put off paying a deposit or forget altogether and make other plans. Once we finalize a resort, we're able to pay the deposit for us and then reserve 15 rooms at the same rate as us. So we're obviously going to need to let people know they're invited, which is where save the dates come in handy. However, I'm looking to avoid sending 100+ save the dates, followed by 100+ invitations as we're on a pretty tight budget and both feel there are more important things we'd rather spend money on. I'm assuming we won't even have a specific wedding date/time/location at that time, so it'd be pretty much impossible to send out the actual invitations this early.

 

We were thinking of sending a very casual invitation (like a postcard save the date but a bit more specific) to all invited guests, which would include the week we're going, resort, travel agent information, addressed to John Smith and Guest or John Smith and Jane Doe and family, etc etc. along with a wedding website which we could then keep updated as we get more information (like the specific date and time and reception information). Then, instead of sending a more detailed invitation to all of those same guests (even though only 20 will actually be attending), we could just include the specific information in a welcome pack or mail it out only to the guests who are coming.

 

We aren't very formal and it's going to be quite a casual week/wedding so I'm not too worried about traditional wording or RSVP cards and inner and outer envelopes and things like that but I'd love some opinions!

 

Thanks

We also went the super casual route for or save the dates. We actually did email save the dates using paperlesspost.com

 

It was a really fun and inexpensive option for our save the dates.

 

We chose this route because of the cost savings but also because with a destination wedding there is so much information that you want to provide to your guests, that we decided that an electronic message in where the guests can click on a link was just perfect!

 

We printed just a few on postcard paper and sent those to the older generations in our fam, but other than that, everyone got the paperless post cards and loves them!

[jacarita]

we did a version of this for our February 2016 wedding. We sent out boarding pass invites that contained our website, our RSVP deadline, basic booking information and the destination and date. We made our RSVP deadline the same as our booking deadline (Ours is a Canadian Package and allowed guests to book with a $150 deposit to hold the great package pricing we received... we were given this pricing for 90 days). Our invites went out at the start of July, and our RSVP date is September 21st. We have 61 people booked so far so it must have worked!

 

We will send a reminder via email to all guests who havent RSVPd yet- a week before the deadline. We are sending a THANK YOU postcard to everyone that placed their deposits... and then will do a larger passport invitation and travel package after final payments are made in October 2015.

 

Website is key in this scenario!

 

My travel agent told me that prices for January 2016 wouldn't be available and you've already booked for February 2016! Stress levels are soaring hahaha I want our guests to get the best prices possible. HOW in the world did you choose a resort? I think we've decided on Mexico but we're trying to pick a resort and it's impossible to decide with all of the outdated wedding package information on their sites and the overwhelming amount of information everywhere else. But I'm glad the boarding pass invitations are working our for you.. over 60 booked already is very exciting! Congratulations

 

Thanks for the replies everyone else as well! Need to get started on a web site because it's going to be pretty important, from what I can tell!

[kmk2016]

My travel agent told me that prices for January 2016 wouldn't be available and you've already booked for February 2016! Stress levels are soaring hahaha I want our guests to get the best prices possible. HOW in the world did you choose a resort? I think we've decided on Mexico but we're trying to pick a resort and it's impossible to decide with all of the outdated wedding package information on their sites and the overwhelming amount of information everywhere else. But I'm glad the boarding pass invitations are working our for you.. over 60 booked already is very exciting! Congratulations

 

Thanks for the replies everyone else as well! Need to get started on a web site because it's going to be pretty important, from what I can tell!

Two words... Amazing TA. She got me my pricing (which was great) in June 2014 for February 2016 with sunwing vacations.

 

we are booked at azul sensatori. I knew I wanted a karisma property and this one fit the bill perfectly for the number and type of guests,

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tygrrlily]

We did exactly this.  I didn't want to spend the money twice and like you, it'd be over 100 invites.  So we sent out our invitations early around 7 months before, and have since kept a very updated website.  We're going to send out packages at the end of the month to guests that have booked with passport booklets w/ more info, luggage tags and a personalized "get pumped" cd... I'm willing to spend more money on the people that are actually coming!

 

[BrideToBeJolie]

@@tygrrlily, that's a great idea!  I might do the same to get everyone all the more excited about coming to our wedding.

[Mrsktobe]

We didn't even send out invites as time was of the essence (engaged in February, married this November coming up) so we just did casual save the dates off of vistaprint.com and sent those out by the first week in March. However, I spent ALOT of time on our wedding website and put a sh*t ton of information on there and really went the extra mile on creating it and building it from scratch - and we included that on our save the dates. Wix is absolutely wonderful for building websites!