Wedding save the dates?

We personally did save the dates, and we sent them early because a lot of people we invited tend to travel around the time of our wedding and we didn’t want them booking vacation thing getting their invites. However we know lots of people who have either not done them or have sent out online save the dates and then physical invites.
There are lots of ways you can do them now! If cost is a concern you can either cut them out all together or try online ones.
They seem to be getting more popular lately but are for sure not necessary

We chose not to do save the dates. It was money we didn't need to spend. We've told most people the date of our wedding, and figured that was good enough. (We didn't send the invites out too early either. We sent them yesterday and our wedding is in 3 1/2 months).
They definitely aren't necessary, unless your wedding is on a long weekend or during peak travel times and you want to ensure people know in advance.

Also, use Vista Print. Its definitely cheaper than wedding website options and if you wait for them to have a sale you can get them 50% off which makes them very reasonably priced. They have sales ALL the time!

Personally, before getting engaged I thought it was sort of a waste of money/money grab. We decided on a winter wedding on Family Day weekend in Ontario so for us Save The Dates were a must. I didn't want my friends or family booking vacations south or other family day events and not be able to attend or ask them to cancel. I did tell everyone I could verbally but now that I've sent them I dont regret it.
The thing with STD's is that older people assume its the invitation, even if it says right on the card, Save the Date... It's such a new tradition even my mom who isnt very old thinks its weird.
I didnt receive some for weddings we know we're invited too this summer and I kind of wish we had. I'm constantly trying to remember who's wedding is when and having to ask them over and over to make sure I dont double book myself. If I had the STD on my fridge it would be way better.

I sent ours out pretty early, but I have family and my one maid of honor who would have to fly down here etc. So we wanted to give them a lot of notice. Our wedding is a little over a year away

Save the dates are nice, but not necessary. We sent them about 10 months ahead because we had quite a few out of town guests, and some would need to save up in order to come. We also sent them via email, which was very low cost, but you can also find them for free. We used paperlesspost for ours.

We sent out Save the Dates because we have a lot of family who travel so we wanted to make sure they knew well in advance. My friend sent out e-save the dates. She designed them online and just emailed them to everything. Didn't cost her a thing.

We didn't do save the dates - We ended up telling everyone because we were excited we picked the date and made it official! Everyone ends up finding out one way or another. And really, whenever I received a "save the date"... I would keep it, but then would forget until the invitation came - So really I didn't see a point in doing "save the date".
I wanted to spend less then $500 on invitations and what not - so we did our invitations and rsvp cards (also got envelopes with a return address on them and pearl shimmer envelopes for the invitation itself from Vistaprint) - we ordered 80 of everything and it came to just under $300 after taxes & 3 day shipping option.
You can also ask them for their wedding package, and they will send you examples and different card types to help you design your own (free of charge).
Just keep in mind... however many guests you have, when it comes to your invites, only order half! Only 1 couple needs 1 invite! (We purchased more then what we needed just in case and knowing my family will want more then 1 as a keep sake hahaha)

We sent them since we have several out of town guests attending and didn't want to not give them enough notice of the wedding.

We didn't do save the dates, but we did make sure we told everyone about our wedding day as soon as we booked our venues, about 6 months in advance, and sent our invites out early. We aren't have a huge wedding though, and we don't have a ton of guests (around 120). I'd say it's really up to you. If you're trying to cut costs, have you considered a digital save the date?

I would say that they are only really needed for out of town guests - and even at that, you could send an electronic save the date!

We sent save the dates to mark about 6 months to go, so people know for sure where and when the wedding is and who is going to be invited so they can start planning. Doing invites closer to 1-2 months with all the timeline details and rsvp, once we are actually settled on timeline. Now, to save the costs, I actually designed the save the dates myself in publisher and we sent them out electronically. Will be doing something similar with invites too.

I would say it depends if you have a lot of out of town guests. I didn't do save the dates as everyone we are inviting has been told before hand when our wedding is. If they can't make it they can't make it. Saying this we are sending out around 4 or so months in advance for invitation. I would cut costs and not do it.

Save The Dates are honestly a personal preference. We did decide to do them because many people we do not see often to continue to remind them when our wedding is. This way they have a magnet with the date, and can refer back to it until we send out invites. Some of ours were sent out 10 months in advance (hand delivered) the rest were mailed out 8 months in advance. I think it really depends on where your wedding is as to how far in advance you send them out.

If you are looking to send STD and want to keep the cost lower, you can always design them online and print them. Keep an eye on vista print as they have sales quite frequently. I have also seen some cheaper templates on etsy that you can download, fill out and then take somewhere to print.

I think Save the Dates are handy, especially if a lot of your guests are from out of town, or if you are having a destination wedding. I think they are newer thing since people lead hectic lives and the Save the Date is a great way to let people know to be available for the your date! Usually they are sent out 12-8 months before the wedding.

We did Save the Dates since over 75% of our guest list will be out of town and will have to coordinate travel/accommodations. They are definitely not necessary, but I figured it'd be nice to give our guests a heads up that our wedding is coming and to plan vacations/work accordingly.

We sent out mailed ones, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary to go the mailed route. You can definitely design online versions that are emailed out to cut costs! This could be as simple as sending an email with a photo of you two and your wedding date.