Save the date cards: wording

Alibear

I'm planning to send STD cards out soon. Our wedding is on a Friday in December so I want to make sure people keep the day free.

But... although we're only having family and bridal party at the ceremony, we want to invite people earlier (maybe between 5-6pm) so they can listen to the speeches.

How would you word the STD cards so people know this? Would something like "Xxx and Yyy are getting married on Zzz, please save the date, from 5pm onwards" be ok?

We could also put a separate note in explaining who is at the ceremony and that they'll be a buffet for when they arrive. Should we also include hotel info, as the wedding day is so close to Xmas?

Any thoughts/suggestions much appreciated!

White_Sapphire

I personally wouldn't send Save The Dates to evening guests. But if you really want people there for the speeches then you could put something like
"X and Y are getting married at Z on *date*.
We are having a very small, intimate ceremony, but would love you to join us for speeches at 5pm, followed by a buffet and dancing"

HTH

RainbowDrops

We just sent STDs to people who we were definately inviting.
Had we had evening guests, we wouldn't have sent them one as they may have thought they were going to get an invite to the whole thing.

Wording wise we just had the same as you (names, date, location & save the date), and included a slip with hotel info so they could book early, and a note saying full invites to follow.

No point in putting too much info on there.

sugarwalsh

It does all sound a little complicated - I would use White Sapphire's wording - it is concise and polite. I do think if you put too much info on then you may as well send the entire invite out? I just used facebook and texts to pre-book the date with everyone! Or just told them. I also used the same method to keep them up to date with the hotel info so they could make allowance of the discount before it expired.

I then sent invites with a letter and menu choices. The letter covered things like accommodation - although I just reminded those who wanted to stay at same hotel as us to book and suggested travelodge to the others as I know a few guests already booked in there. I covered the topic of gift lists and that was about it. I think if there is too much info it can get confusing!

Megan

Alibear

Thanks guys. We have a list of people to invite in the evening too, so probably won't send them STD cards. But as we'd still love to have our close friends there for speeches etc, but only wanted a family/bridal party only ceremony, mainly because we couldn't get the list below 100 otherwise!

I think we should send the cards if we'd like them there from 5pm, as guests would still have to take a half day off work should they want/be able to. It's also pretty close to Xmas, which can be a busy time of year for many...