Save the Date Messages

CoconutJay

What's the etiquette with this?

I've received save the date cards from couples in the post before but to me this seems like an awful waste of money just to simply tell someone the date of your wedding.

I absolutely intend to send actual invitations by post but is this really necessary for the save the date card?

My thoughts are to take a cute picture of myself and the fiance on the beach with the date written in the sand (yes cheesy I know!) and email it out to people.
I also thought I'd take that opportunity to ask for peoples addresses since I don't have a lot of them and can't post invites without them!

What are your thoughts on this?

missmimo

That sounds like a great idea!

We've decided to send a Save the Date out to all our guests as we're getting married on the May Bank Holiday and people tend to make plans quite far ahead for those. We also wanted to make sure that we got our date in first, in case other couples plan their wedding for the same weekend!! lol

For the day guests (mostly family) we are also sending details of the on-site accommodation now as most of them will be coming at least 200 miles and we want them to have first dibs on a bed.

I think it really depends on if you NEED to send one. A lot of our family members don't really do email yet so sending stuff through the post was really the only option for us. Like you said, it's nice to receive the actual invitation throught the post (plus you can use it as a hint to the theme/colour scheme etc) but I think your idea of sending a picture sounds great

minerva_windsong

We didn't do save the dates - like you I didn't see the point in spending the money. But then we've had a very long engagement (it'll be almost two and a half years between getting engaged and getting married) so most people know when it is anyway, plus we're not getting married on a popular date - if it was in school holidays or around Christmas I might have done them.


If we had though I think we'd have opted for something similar to you - just an email with a photo of us and a message saying 'Save the date' and asking for addresses.

CoconutJay

We're getting married Saturday 18th July next year so I guess it's potentially a popular date for having holidays/other peoples weddings etc.
We'll also be in Asia for 9 months up until a month before the wedding (yes- I'm planning a wedding from 1000's of miles away!) so I'm not necessarily going to have the opportunity to see people to tell them.

Luckily most people we intend to invite are either on Facebook or email so it will be easy to make sure everyone receives a 'save the date'.

stir_crazy

We did have save the dates, mainly to make sure that guests had something to remind them not to book holidays, etc before we sent the invitations out. And it was a good chance to ask addresses so that I had them before I got too stressed.

ceh209

I think the email's a good idea if you want to do it. We didn't even bother, I just put a message on facebook saying if you think you're in our 80 closest friends and family, keep X date free next year! The most important people will take notice, the ones who don't, they're not important...

CoconutJay

That's a good idea although I've already got people assuming they're invited to our wedding even though I've got no intention of inviting them!

It's ridiculous. People say "I am invited to the wedding aren't I?!"
How do you answer that without hurting their feelings!

UnlikelyButTrue

CoconutJay wrote: »

It's ridiculous. People say "I am invited to the wedding aren't I?!"
How do you answer that without hurting their feelings!

I don't know the answer to this one I'm afraid CoconutJay, but I think from what I have read in the "What I wish I’d known before my wedding" https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4617859 thread, don't invite any more people than you need / want.

Personally I hate getting invited to weddings where I barely know the couple, OH and I have a pact for our wedding next year that if we haven't both met them (and liked them) then they are not invited!

mountainofdebt

ceh209 wrote: »

I think the email's a good idea if you want to do it. We didn't even bother, I just put a message on facebook saying if you think you're in our 80 closest friends and family, keep X date free next year! The most important people will take notice, the ones who don't, they're not important...

now if I didn't get an invite I might be upset lol!

Totally agree about save the dates (was going to use the initials but thought against it on reflection!) if you are getting married on a bank holiday or in the holiday season but only send them to the day guests.....if I was just an evening guest I might like the option of doing my thing instead!

ruby_eskimo

We're sending out Save the Dates as we're getting married on a Thursday and therefore people will need to book time off work in order to come. A lot of them are already aware of this but we just want to make sure they're all prepared. Will probably send out the accommodation information at the same time. We're only having 50 guests, most of them couples so 25 envelopes at the most.

Evil_Olive

I would say they're essential for a summer wedding, as we found out. We're getting married on 30th August.
they were also very useful in lots of other ways.

We sent out Save the Dates 6 months before and even so still had a lot of people who couldn't come because they had already booked a holiday abroad/bought tickets to a festival/playing a gig/had accepted an invitation to another wedding etc.
Who knows how many more declines there would have been if we hadn't sent the Save the Dates out and people only had 2/3 months notice instead of 6.

We found it made us less panicky about getting the invites out on time (we had a few problems with them) because everybody was already 'Saving the Date'.
We also put an email address on the card and most of the people who already knew they couldn't come emailed to tell us - this saved a lot of time and money on invitations being made for and sent to people who couldn't come anyway.

We used the Vistaprint Free Business Cards offer for our Save the Dates. We also bought a couple of rolls of magnetic sticky tape from Maplins, stuck a strip on the back of each and had "I stick to the fridge!" printed on the front. People told us this was a great reminder not to accidentally double-book anything else.

We used them to ask people to email us their contact details too - very useful indeed

If I had it to do over again, I'd probably even send them out 8 months before.