Your wedding invitations set the tone of your wedding, and can get your wedding guests so excited about your wedding! There's something really special about receiving a wedding invitation in the post. But the question is, how far in advance should you send them? Here are a few FAQs regarding when wedding invitations should be mailed.
When should I post my wedding invites?
It's really up to you, but usually about 3 months before the wedding is a good time to send out your wedding invitations. Some people say 6-8 weeks, but this can leave you in a more stressful situation if your caterer is demanding numbers; and you need time to plan who will sit next to who in your seating chart; and you're left still chasing RSVPs! However, it's really up to you, but I really wouldn't recommend sending the invites out any less than 6 weeks prior to your wedding date.
The things you need to think about are, giving your guests enough time to plan ahead to make arrangements to get to your wedding, plus they might need to arrange travel, a babysitter or time off work.
I'm having a destination wedding, does the 3 month rule still apply to sending my wedding invites?
For a destination wedding you might want to give your wedding guests more time and send your wedding invitations sooner. They'll almost certainly need to book time off work, book travel and accommodation so giving them more notice will be appreciated. 4 months would be a good bet for sending out wedding invitations to your destination wedding.
3 or 4 months doesn't sound like enough notice to make sure everyone is free, can't I send out my wedding invitations sooner?
You could send out your wedding invites sooner, but the only problem with that is, it could possibly backfire. Sometimes people can't think that far in advance or their situation changes somehow in the time in between, making it harder to get to your wedding, so you may find RSVPs change or don't come back to you, leaving you with a lot of chasing to do, and the guest list changing. However, having said that, if you really want to send your wedding invitations out way in advance, 6 months would probably be the earliest time to send them to avoid hiccups like that, which brings us to the final question nicely...
What about save the dates?
Sending out save the dates are a great way to give people lots of advance notice to... you guessed it, save the date! They'll be excited to receive the save the date and it really helps make sure they don't end up booking a holiday on the beach or a city break right when your wedding is going to be! You can send save the dates as soon as you're ready to.