getting married when should i send invites

traciemk

:j im getting married 12th august 2006

when should i send out wedding invites to family and friends?
would you say it to soon im just worried if i leave it till about 6 weeks before wedding poeple would have book for there summer holidays

also as it my second marraige but my partner first wedding we have every thing for the house so we thought of holiday voucher(like thomas cook) how do i explain that we would like vouchers for a wedding present do i right that on wedding invites?????

TraceyB_2

I'd send them out as soon as - like you say people might start booking holidays - also if you have people that need to travel/book accommodation, they will have plenty of notice and might be able to bag a bargain!

So far as the vouchers are concerned, I can remember when I was planning ours, seeing people posting on https://www.hitched.co.uk with poems that explained they would prefer a gift voucher.

HTH

Good luck for the big day! :T :T

skylight

Congratulations for a start!!!

Personally, I think (and what I did) was to spend a few days actually phoning round people nowish to tell them about the date. That makes sure that they keep the date free!

Tell them in the conversation that the official invite will be round nearer the time, but you just wanted to share the good news with everyone!

Then ask for their opinion about the gift vouchers. If ringing his family then your mum suggested, your family its his mum who suggested, perhaps Thomas Cook gift vouchers instaed of wedding presents as we already have everything and what their view is on that.

The down side is that despite lists/wants etc, most guests already have something in mind for such an occassion. Gift vouchers also show excatly how much a person has spent and therefore they may feel a little awkward/stingy etc.

us,thecat&thedebt

hi
the new trend seems to be to send out save the date cards
small cards that say you plan to marry on xxx day
invite cards can be hard to send out so early
a seller on ebay does these personalised cards pretty cheap and they are real nice
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Personalised-Wedding-Save-the-Date-Cards-Invitations_W0QQitemZ8250664450QQcategoryZ98738QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
this is the seller we used quick delivery and real nice

hth :j

purplepurple

We sent a letter with the invites asking people to "buy" a piece of the new house we wanted. We printed a picture of a house with arrows pointing to different parts of it and we let people choose from things such as £50 for the roof, £40 for a window, £30 for a brick and so on. Everyone loved it because it got round the awkward thing of just asking for money, it made it more fun.
Once we bought the house, we sent everyone a photo of the bit they'd bought which really made it clear how much they had helped us by giving us money.

Perhaps for yours you could get people to "sponsor" a mile of your trip... so they could buy £50 worth of holiday vouchers per 10 miles or something similar.... I don't think anyone would mind you asking them for holiday vouchers, to be honest, it's a lot less hassle for them than having to think of a present to buy that you haven't already got. :rolleyes: If everyone is buying you "miles" then it doesn't matter how big or small their donation is, they're all contributing to the same present.

I'd send the actual invites out 6 to 8 weeks before, but mention it to people now so they can write it on their calendars...

Good luck! Hope it goes really well...

across

purplepurple has a great idea there! well done to you for that one!
charlotte664 did what i did told people as an idea then i think about 6 wks before i sent the invites out or else they may get forgotten,put away in a drawer etc so tell by word of mouth by now to put date on calender and invites will come later so they dont book their holidays then!

Yorkielass

I'm getting married a couple of weeks before you and we sent save the date cards which we made ourselves to aunts and uncles, family friends and close friends - people who we'd really like to be at our wedding, some already knew and had planned for it (like my uncle had to book his holiday off work in the autumn) but others were so chuffed to know we wanted them to spend our day with us - we (and my parents for family friends) put them in with Christmas cards. 3 of them have already booked somewhere to say and have made our wedding into a little holiday for themselves :j .

We haven't finalised our guest list yet but other people will get invites but most are local.

We're going to send out a note to people who are coming to the wedding with logistics etc and with the gift list card. I know some people put them in with the invite but we'd rather send them out later to people who are coming, but then that means 2 lots of postage.

melancholly

I was asked to give gift vouchers for a wedding last year - if they have a wedding list they know what you spent anyway! Was much easier to go and get - easier to wrap than a duvet and towel set we got for someone else! I think there was a sheet of paper in the invites with all the travel info and gift details on it.
Also - might be worth having an idea of the holiday then seeing who's cheapest first - I met someone (at a wedding - it's been a busy few years for them, just not for me yet!) last year who got holiday vouchers then found the holiday they wanted in another high street chain for quite a bit cheaper.

rainee

my sister works for a company called travelcouncillors doing a private service i noticed in 'weddings' magazine this month that they mentioned it plus it means that your guests dont have the problem of being stingy etc
we have decided we need a loft conversion so we have a bigger room so like purplepurple we are going to have a list made up of the building materials needed but to save the problems my future sister in law is going to set up a savings account so that we dont know who has paid in what

mrsdee

hi there - first of all congratulations!

Now, the tricky question of how to ask for vouchers/money. when my OH and I got married, it was second time around for him and we had bought our house so we really had everything that we "needed" and didnt really want anything in the form of household appliances. However, there was a piece of work we wanted to do on our house so the way we approached it was putting a letter in the invitation (covering dress code, what was happening during the day etc, direction) along these lines ....

We know many of you will have travelled a long way and gone to the expense of staying in hotels etc so please do not think that we expect a gift as we have everything we need anyway! However, if you do want to mark the day in some way, one thing we are working on together is XXX which will hugely improve our enjoyment in this house, and any contribution you might like to make to this project would be very welcome. If you dont feel comfortable with this then anything that will make us think of you would of course be very welcome. Thankyou...

I think if you phrase it carefully it can work and we did receive a lot of cash/cheques but also some very thoughtful and unusual presents as well. Lucky us!!

Good luck and have the most wonderful day.