advice for a semi-DW invitations and save the dates

[sweetpea&babycorn]

hi everyone! i need help!!! here''s what''s going on:

FI and i are getting married in a year. we''re getting married in virginia beach, so it''s a semi-DW wedding, but it''s not so expensive to travel there and a lot of our guests would have to travel and stay in a hotel regardless of where it is. so we''re figuring out our guest list and here''s what happened:
because our guest list is long and we couldn''t figure out where to cut guests, my FI and i developed 2 lists. our first list is our family and closest and mutual friends (List A). our second list are guests who we would love to attend but may not be able to accomodate due to the size of our venue space which is capped at 130 (List B).

we don''t plan on helping guests pay for travel or hotel, is that bad? we are paying for our parents, siblings, and grandparents travel expenses. and if our wedding party needs help, we will chip in as much as we can as well. we totally understand if people can''t come for whatever reason. we really feel like the smaller the better, but we have to invite many family members out of politeness and respect.

we wanted to send save-the-dates so people could arrange travel and vacation days. however, since we now have two sets of guests to send invitations to, what should we do about the save-the-dates? we could send them to our List A guests only, or forget about them altogether. we will block out rooms at two different hotels and also offer a list of other accomodations in case they have reward points they want to use, or would rather book a hotel through hotwire or priceline to get better prices. but all this would have to come in the invitation if we don''t send out save-the-dates.

we were going to send out invitations to List A at the end of February (3.5months before the wedding) and give them 1 month to RSVP. Based on their responses, we were going to send out invitations to List B at the end of March (2.5 months before the wedding) and give them 1 month to RSVP. is this enough time for people to figure out travel arrangements?

what do you think i should do? what''s the best course of action in your opinion?? sorry if this is a long

any advice is appreciated!

 

[zipzapgirl]

I think B-Listing is a tough thing to pull off without anyone finding out. It really only works if you are saavy about it and the B-List is small.

Here''s what I would do:

- Forget A & B lists first of all and come up with 150 guests you want to invite. Prioritize and put them on the guest list. Some of these will regret, so I think 150 is probably reasonable for a wedding where most people will have to travel. You might be able to increase that number if there are some courtesy invites to older family members who defnitely won''t make it.

- Send the 150 people the Save the Dates as soon as possible. Vacations book up fast and summer weekends go even more quickly. You don''t have to give details yet, just so they know to hold the date. Then you can either set up a website with the hotel and travel details or send an email or otherwise circulate the info as it becomes available.

- About 2-3 months before, send out the invites to these 150 people. As you get declines (once you are below 130), start going down the list of the B-List and send those invitations out immediately. It''s very obvious if you do "rounds" of invites as you described above. Much less obvious if people get their invites only a couple of weeks later.

I know it''s hard, but you really will have to battle with the guest list sooner or later and better to go ahead and send STD''s to people then have the guests attending determined by who could plan the trip with only a couple months notice right?

 

[lucyandroger]

I completely agree with zipzapgirl. Great advice!

 

[Sabine]

Ditto!

Where are you having the wedding in VB? I''m currently living there, although not for much longer, so I''m just nosey!

And no matter what you do, as I''m sure you know, don''t send save the dates to someone unless you are 100% sure you''re going to invite them. So if you''re set on doing a B-list, I would either forgo save the dates entirely, or only send them to your A list, but if you do that I''m sure people on your B-list will find out and think they aren''t going to be invited.

 

[lulu66]

Date: 6/21/2010 2:12:58 PM
Author:sweetpea&babycorn
hi everyone! i need help!!! here''s what''s going on:


FI and i are getting married in a year. we''re getting married in virginia beach, so it''s a semi-DW wedding, but it''s not so expensive to travel there and a lot of our guests would have to travel and stay in a hotel regardless of where it is. so we''re figuring out our guest list and here''s what happened:

because our guest list is long and we couldn''t figure out where to cut guests, my FI and i developed 2 lists. our first list is our family and closest and mutual friends (List A). our second list are guests who we would love to attend but may not be able to accomodate due to the size of our venue space which is capped at 130 (List B).


we don''t plan on helping guests pay for travel or hotel, is that bad? we are paying for our parents, siblings, and grandparents travel expenses. and if our wedding party needs help, we will chip in as much as we can as well. we totally understand if people can''t come for whatever reason. we really feel like the smaller the better, but we have to invite many family members out of politeness and respect.


we wanted to send save-the-dates so people could arrange travel and vacation days. however, since we now have two sets of guests to send invitations to, what should we do about the save-the-dates? we could send them to our List A guests only, or forget about them altogether. we will block out rooms at two different hotels and also offer a list of other accomodations in case they have reward points they want to use, or would rather book a hotel through hotwire or priceline to get better prices. but all this would have to come in the invitation if we don''t send out save-the-dates.


we were going to send out invitations to List A at the end of February (3.5months before the wedding) and give them 1 month to RSVP. Based on their responses, we were going to send out invitations to List B at the end of March (2.5 months before the wedding) and give them 1 month to RSVP. is this enough time for people to figure out travel arrangements?


what do you think i should do? what''s the best course of action in your opinion?? sorry if this is a long

any advice is appreciated!

our wedding will be a destination wedding for 98% of the guest list. we are also not able to pay for anyone''s travel/accomodations. however, we did not do a "list A & B," we decided on one guest list, sent out our save the dates about 6 months before the wedding to all invited guests. then we will send out invites 8 weeks before the wedding. now, i''m not sure how far your guests have to travel but most of ours are a plane ride away & we are expecting MANY declines, like at least 60% declines. which we knew once we decided where we would host the wedding. my advice is just one guest list; it seems too sticky for an A & B list. however, if you do go w/that plan zipzapgirl has some pretty good advice.

 

[sweetpea&babycorn]

Date: 6/21/2010 7:01:52 PM
Author: Sabine
Ditto!

Where are you having the wedding in VB? I''m currently living there, although not for much longer, so I''m just nosey!

And no matter what you do, as I''m sure you know, don''t send save the dates to someone unless you are 100% sure you''re going to invite them. So if you''re set on doing a B-list, I would either forgo save the dates entirely, or only send them to your A list, but if you do that I''m sure people on your B-list will find out and think they aren''t going to be invited.

we''re getting married at the Lesner Inn we love everything about our space except the area for the dancefloor and band set-up. it''s sort of small, but we''re making do with what we got.

thanks for the wonderful advice!! i wasn''t super comfortable with the two list idea, esp with the save the dates which i really do think we should send out. my FI doesn''t have much to say about it, so i''ve been kind of on my own thinking of the best thing to do. i was thiking of two lists because our list A and list B do not overlap at all with our guests. list A is strictly family and our mutual friends. while list B were our separate friends who don''t interact with people from list A. still a sticky and tricky situation to navigate though.

we will try to get our guests down to 150, hopefully we can hear from other family members about who can''t come, etc. if not, we will try to be stealthy. thanks everyone!!!!!!