Out of Town invites

We are in a similar situation.

Our wedding is September 2020 and 75% of guests are travelling from Saskatchewan to Ontario.

We sent out save the dates to the Saskatchewan people, close friends and our wedding party/parents 1.5 years in advance. And everyone was soooo appreciative for the advance notice. We are sending the rest of the save the dates now (almost 1 year until the wedding) I also made our save the dates, and hand delivered most of them.

For our invitations we will do the same. We will send the majority invites in the spring (6-7 months before the wedding) And then send the Ontario people their invites 3-4 months in advance, this way we can also send out to our B-list guests at the same time if some Saskatchewan people arent able to attend since their rsvp date would be around when we send out Ontario peoples. If that makes sense lol. Just make sure you are very organized and mark down or cross off who you have sent them all too. I am also making our invites as well and will hand deliver what I can.

Hope that helps!!!

Just some input. We did the save the dates (by mail) but you could totally save the cost and send paperless ones. If you're planning a casual, informal wedding you could even make a private Facebook group if you don't plan to create a wedding website. This way you can give the guests all the details they are looking for.

I sent my invites out March 22nd, 2019. Our wedding date was June 22nd, 2019. And the guests had until May 3rd to respond. This gave me 1 month to collect any unresponsive RSVPs and 1 month after that to finalize numbers, complete any planning (like the seating chart) that was dependant on numbers without over cramming everything into that final week.

75% of our guests were "out-of-town" but most were only a 4-5 hour drive away not located across the country.

We did online save the dates for out of town guests. There are a number of free options on paperless post. Just don't add anything to it like an envelope or a liner, and it'll stay free. Whats great about paperless post is that you can see which guests have opened it, so you know 100% that they received it.

Here's what ours looked like:

I would revisit the Save the Dates - this is where they are super useful with the heads-up! You can do online/emailed Save the Dates so it's not an extra cost to you, but the East-Coasters get that advanced notice!

75-80% of my guests are out-of-town - not so much they have to fly but most need to book the hotel and time off work (shift workers on the weekend) so it definitely helped having that extra notice.

I have to agree with the others that even though you are not a fan of save the dates, your guests may appreciate them especially if they have to do some extensive travelling. I think doing online save the dates is a good cost effective way to do this. As the others have said, get your wedding website up and running with all the required information. Your other option is send out the actual invites to his side or anyone who would be travelling and then send the rest closer to your date.

I am also on the Island with my in laws coming from Sask or the UK. We did what a lot of people have said and sent out email Save the Dates. We then mailed out our actual invites after that. The only pain in the butt is tracking down everyone's email addresses!

I agree with some comments below with even a email type of save the dates- this way not an extra cost but something people should get and then the invites closer too.

The invites for out of town guests can be sent a month prior since they would need more time to prepare for travel making arrangements. Province wise, you should be ok to send it on time since they don't need to drive that far and can reply the same RSVP date.

If you don't like the cost of save the dates, you could always just send a blanket email to everyone who will need to prepare to travel for your wedding. I personally like save the dates and you could totally just send them to those from out of town who need the advanced notice.

Hi Haley,

I am in the same boat as you as all of my guests are coming from the other side of Canada as well. We sent out Save-the-Dates about 11 months in advance for this reason. This gives our guests a chance to look up information WELL in advance and it doesn't give them an excuse not to be able to come. We sent our invites with a little info card 5 months ahead.

I think this worked out SO well. I also put a ton of information on my wedding website because guests needed to book planes, cars, ferry, accommodation etc. People will definitely appreciate having a ton of notice when you have so many things to plan. This gives them lots of time to save money, and also plane tickets are WAY cheaper if you can book them close to a year ahead.

Hopefully this helps!