Not Doing Invitations?

[Victoriabride]

We have decided not to do invitations, and are sending a nice email with all the travel and resort information. I find this way to be more efficient and less costly (we are on a tight budget and cutting costs wherever we can). A part of me is thinking that we should be doing a proper invite. Most of our guests already know the dates and have confirmed they are coming. Has anyone out there done an email for an invitation and how did it go over?! Silly thing to be worried over, I know... but I have been very indecisive on this and am running out of time!!

 

[beckys98]

Hi @@Victoriabride - I'm getting married in just 7 weeks and we did not do a mailed invitation! All we did was the original STD email (via Paperless Post), which linked to our website with all the resort and travel information. We had people RSVP on the website for both our welcome event and the wedding itself. We did tell people not to wait for the invite to RSVP because we weren't sending one. I sent a couple of reminder emails out since there was 6 months from when we sent the STD and our booking deadline so people didn't forget.

 

We have had zero issue. I have not heard any comments about it and I honestly don't think people even thought about it! They have all the information they need already. That said, all of our invitees use the internet and email, so if you have some older folks who don't go online you might need to do something printed for them. We now have a Facebook group set up for those who are coming where I will post travel tips and other information and updates for the trip! So far, so good and we're in the homestretch!

 

We just prefer to spend that money on something extra for our guests while we're in Jamaica and - to be completely honest - I just didn't have the spare time to do it. My job is pretty demanding and I work a lot of hours. We did a destination wedding to keep things simpler (not that it is simple, but simpler than a traditional wedding) so it was an easy choice for me to skip it.

 

Good luck!! Happy planning!

[veryvalentine]

If all your guests are accessible via email than it seems like a great way to save money.  A lot of the people we have to invite are older and don't have an email address, some have never used the internet so we really had to go the print route.

 

There are some really affordable ways to do invites without breaking the bank.   You can go on Etsy.com and search download invites.  They basically customize the invite, send you the digital file and the cost is about $20 for most designs. 

You can print the invites at a print shop which with cardstock and envelops might cost about $50-$100 plus postage.  eeek, it all adds up eh.  But some people spend even more.   You could even hand deliver your invites to save on postage.

 

It's really your call.  I would say that if all your guests have access to email then go for it.  You save yourself such a headache. 

Edited April 22, 2015 by veryvalentine

[Victoriabride]

thanks for the input ladies !! I love the idea of a fb group as most of our guests are on fb. I can't believe I didn't think about it!

Its good to hear that others are going paperless and it hasn't been an issue!  

[vancouverpetunia]

So far we have done only the STD via email and have asked for RSVPs on our web site. But we are still about 1 year from our wedding date. I've sent out one reminder so far (again, via email) as our booking deadline is May 15.

 

I'm thinking about doing invitations still, as I love pretty paper things   Plus we do have a few older folks who do not have email (and they are my FH's grandmas, so we want to give them something, even though they won't be coming). But I won't be doing anything extra with the invites if I decide to do them (i.e. RSVP cards, etc.). The invites would just direct people to the web site to RSVP, if they haven't already. I will likely do the Etsy downloadable/print locally route that @@veryvalentine mentioned.

[beckys98]

Oh yeah - the Facebook group is the best! We set it up after our booking deadline and it only has the people who are actually going in the group. We're doing a "Shout Out" for each guest where we post pictures and the story of how we know them and some fun facts. This way they all get to know each other a little bit before arriving. They'll at least recognize everyone's face! Plus it gives us a chance to show just how much everyone means to us.

 

Everyone has told us how much they love it!

 

We also posted our optional excursion on there as an event so we could get a rough idea of how many people want to do it.

 

thanks for the input ladies !! I love the idea of a fb group as most of our guests are on fb. I can't believe I didn't think about it!

Its good to hear that others are going paperless and it hasn't been an issue! 

[krystalball]

@@beckys98 I love this idea of the facebook group and shout outs to help the guests get to know each other beforehand.

 

Can I ask how many guests you have coming to your wedding? I don't have final numbers yet, but am expecting close to 60 and I'm wondering if it will get to be too much with that many people...

[beckys98]

We have 65 adults! But we do couples as one post. Sometimes we are close with both friends so that post is a little longer, but if it is a close friend with their "plus 1" we just make sure they are in a picture and mention them. So, that helps! If you and your fiancé split them up it isn't bad. They do take a little time (maybe an hour each) because we want to be thoughtful about what we say about each special person. We each usually do one per week and we started just 2 months before our wedding and we're almost through all of them! It's fun to do them! 

 

Also, if you had a few hours on a Sunday you could write a few of them in a Word doc and then just copy/paste them to post one at a time!

 

@@beckys98 I love this idea of the facebook group and shout outs to help the guests get to know each other beforehand.

 

Can I ask how many guests you have coming to your wedding? I don't have final numbers yet, but am expecting close to 60 and I'm wondering if it will get to be too much with that many people...

[krystalball]

@@beckys98 Thanks! I'll definitely look to do this for my wedding guests.

 

@@Victoriabride I just did an email RSVP last month via celebrations.com with zero complaints and a few people mentioned that they thought it made a lot of sense to do an e-vite since I was linking to my wedding website. 

 

I had wanted to do passport invitations closer to the wedding date for those who were booked to join us in Mexico, but my ever pragmatic FI shot that down, lol. "Why would we spend money to send a paper invite to people who already know all the trip details and have put down deposits to come to the wedding?" He's right, but they're so pretty!!!

[Victoriabride]

Those were my thoughts exactly! I wanted to do invitations because I wanted to create something pretty and have it as a keepsake... But, like your FI, mine was being Mr. practical as always and not wanting to spend the money lol