Save the Dates vs Invitations or Both?

I did the Save the dates or my wedding back in December and sent out my invitations mid June. My wedding is September 1st. Some people don't think Save the Dates are necessary (i did evite for those) but i think it is a good idea so that people know when it is and don't book something else that day.

Save the Dates are usually sent out 6-8 months prior to the wedding to let your guests know the date of your wedding so the can save it in their calendar, it really doesn't even need much more info then this, but you could include the location if you wanted as well. If you send save the dates then you would typically send your wedding invites approx 3 months before your wedding.

If you don't send save the dates, then I would send your invites out earlier so your guests have more notice to make the necessary arrangements (hotels, babysitters, etc).

Personally, we did not send save the dates to save on postage and used a wedding website to have our guests RSVP to. We sent out invites out 6 months before our wedding.

Thank you so much everyone!! You are really giving some peace of mind to an overachiever lil

We did both! We did the save the dates because a lot of people we invited travel in the spring and we wanted to let them know our date before they went and booked vacations. It's totally up to you though! You can send save the dates or you can send your invites out a little earlier

I'm doing both! One as just a notice to people when the date is (since it's a Friday more people will need to book time off), I'm sending them out in August and getting married in may next year (so 9ish month ahead of time)! Formal invites we will probably give out around Christmas! More details to the wedding and everything else we need to let people know!

Save the date aren't necessary in my opinion, but we decided to send some. Our wedding is on a holiday weekend and we have quite a few guests travelling. We wanted them to have ample time to plan their trip.

We skipped save the dates and just sent our invites out early. We have a large guest list and wanted to save money.

Save the dates are to send out 8 months - 1 year time to let your guests know when to keep open. Overseas family and friends especially since they need to plan accordingly for passports and other documents.

Invitations can be sent out 3 months prior so you can get the responses back in time. This can be done after the save the dates.

You can skip the save the dates if you feel its not needed and avoid extra costs.

I had sent out invitations only knowing that my side of the family would make it from the states. I avoided international family besause of the cost of the venue.

Tyanna gave a great explanation! We decided not to send save the dates though, to save some money and give us more time to fight about the guest list lol. Instead we're sending the invites out 4 months before the wedding, and set the RSVP date for 2 months before the wedding so we have LOTS of time to call people back and organize our lives lol.

Save the dates are sent out around a year to 8 months before the wedding, and invitations are sent out about 6 months later!

Basically, save the dates are confirmation that you're going to be invited to the wedding, and for guests that may need to plan a full trip to the wedding, and invitations are the finalization of information about the wedding (time, venue locations, etc).

These were our save the dates. Invitations haven't yet gone out (they'll go out in february)