Save the dates - necessary???

[Diamond Confused]

Yes or no?

 

[ficklefaye]

i didn''t send any, most people knew we were engaged and knew the date, so i didn''t bother, i think we sent out the invitations early enough to compensate

 

[Tuckins1]

No, not necessary. We didn''t do them. As long as you get your invitations out in enough time, and I would definitely notify any out of town guests way ahead of time. Some people do like them just as a reminder though.

 

[charbie]

depends on how far guests will be travelling. our families live 2 hrs away from us in opposite directions, so everyone will be travelling. wanted to give a lot of notice so they could begin planning for hotel stays. we put our website address on there so they could get a glimpse into what''s going on, too

 

[jstarfireb]

I say no...didn''t sent them, and wouldn''t send them if I had to do it all over again. Everyone had the link to our wedding website or knew by word of mouth. We saved a bunch on paper and postage that way.

 

[charbie]

Date: 7/21/2009 3:19:07 PM
Author: charbie
depends on how far guests will be travelling. our families live 2 hrs away from us in opposite directions, so everyone will be travelling. wanted to give a lot of notice so they could begin planning for hotel stays. we put our website address on there so they could get a glimpse into what''s going on, too

oh AND i wanted to add that i designed them myself, printed them on a website, and they were postcards, so they were less than $1 a piece.

 

[FrekeChild]

No, and they caused a lot of problems and breaches in etiquette for me!

 

[lala2332]

no. the people that you care about and really want to be there will know your date. I think this is especially true in the age of the internet, with wedding web pages, facebook, ect.

 

[SassyB]

I did because so many people have to travel and I wanted give hotel info. We did really simple costco picture cards and an insert with hotel info.

It was just under $30 for 75 cards. Cheap and cute!

 

[Diamond Confused]

Date: 7/21/2009 3:34:21 PM
Author: FrekeChild
No, and they caused a lot of problems and breaches in etiquette for me!

Freke - that''s my concern. I do not want kids at my wedding and we are already having issues with people thinking they can bring their kids. Our invitations will say adults only but the save the dates wouldn''t. I don''t want out of towners buying plane tickets for kids that aren''t invited.

 

[wannaBMrsH]

We only did so because we were having a DW. And we had a resounding success with them. We have over 40 people booked for our wedding in the Dominican Republic. But I probably wouldn''t have done them for a hometown wedding.

 

[NuggetBrain]

We are sending them, but only because we are doing a Friday wedding and therefore want to give folks enough time to get everything situated. Otherwise, we would probably only send them to the out of town folks.

 

[cleokizzy]

not really. we opted not to have STDs because we have A & B-lists and we couldn''t figure out how the STDs will be handled with that arrangement

 

[Smurfysmiles]

we did for sure! we have guests traveling over 10 hours almost to be there and some needed to put in their time off requests a year in advance (apparently this is normal? i''ve never heard of this before the wedding but then again i also only worked in a grocery store before i moved lol)

 

[JerseyGrl81]

I think it depends. I did because I am having a DW. I also think you should do them if you are having your wedding over a holiday weekend or if most of your guests will have to travel to your wedding or you are having your wedding on a day (such as a Friday) that people will have to take off work for. Other than that I don't think they are needed.

 

[ksluice]

just saw an article on this on TheKnot...they say the only 3 pieces truly nec. are: the invite/rsvp, the thank you note and ... the escort card (saying what table folks are to sit at). Article here linky

 

[KatyWI]

Not at all - in fact, I personally feel they''re extremely superfluous unless you''re doing a true DW that people will need tons of time to save up for - and even then, I feel like the people you''re inviting would probably know the date anyway, so.... still superfluous.

We didn''t do them even though 80% of our guest list lives between 75-1000 miles away. I didn''t even send the invitations before 7 weeks out, which means people will have them by 6 weeks out, but everyone we''re inviting knows it and knows the date, and that''s 130 people.

In short... No.

 

[SarahLovesJS]

No! The ones we bought were beautiful..but it was seriously one of our biggest wastes of money. It''s the only splurge I kind of regret.

Beautiful..but an unnecessary expense and it would have been nice to have that money later.

 

[honey22]

Not totally necessary, but it gives your guests plenty of notice to make arragements. If you are happy with a possible large number of declines then don''t send them. But if you would be devastated if certain people missed the wedding, then give them plenty of opportunity to be able to be there.

 

[DearBuddha]

DH and I made a website that we circulated via email to our guests. I couldn''t justify spending more money on paper that would eventually end up in someone''s trash can.

 

[Lilac]

We didn''t send any. Most of our guests were local and we made sure to tell everyone the date far in advance. I didn''t think it was worth the money.

 

[lala2332]

Date: 7/21/2009 9:44:13 PM
Author: honey22
Not totally necessary, but it gives your guests plenty of notice to make arragements. If you are happy with a possible large number of declines then don''t send them. But if you would be devastated if certain people missed the wedding, then give them plenty of opportunity to be able to be there.

honey, i doubt anyone is happy with a large number of declines, unless they over-invited.

In planning my wedding I know that the people that i care about the most (family and my close friends) will be there and that if someone chooses not to come/can''t come that it will not be the end of the world or a friendship. I don''t know how to explain what I''m thinking but I would imagine that if I really want someone to be there then it probably mean they want to be there as well...and that the less i care, the less they care....parallel lines on a graph.

STDs seem like a rather new invention. Plenty of people managed to make it to weddings before they became common practice.

I do understand the fun of having them though!

 

[omieluv]

Not necessary. We do not plan on sending them out, as we are not planning a wedding with more than 100 and most are local.

 

[honey22]

Date: 7/21/2009 11:10:54 PM
Author: lala2332

Date: 7/21/2009 9:44:13 PM
Author: honey22
Not totally necessary, but it gives your guests plenty of notice to make arragements. If you are happy with a possible large number of declines then don''t send them. But if you would be devastated if certain people missed the wedding, then give them plenty of opportunity to be able to be there.

honey, i doubt anyone is happy with a large number of declines, unless they over-invited.

In planning my wedding I know that the people that i care about the most (family and my close friends) will be there and that if someone chooses not to come/can''t come that it will not be the end of the world or a friendship. I don''t know how to explain what I''m thinking but I would imagine that if I really want someone to be there then it probably mean they want to be there as well...and that the less i care, the less they care....parallel lines on a graph.

STDs seem like a rather new invention. Plenty of people managed to make it to weddings before they became common practice.

I do understand the fun of having them though!

Umm, that was kinda my point. If you really do care about people being able to make it, make an effort and send a piece of paper or email to everyone and give them plenty of chance to make it. IMO 6 weeks isn''t enough notice for many guests to make arrangements to travel etc.

I just think it''s polite to send them. They can be inexpensive and you don''t have to make it a big deal.

 

[Clairitek]

I think it depends on a few things. If your guests will probably require a hotel stay and you live in a city where hotels are expensive or typically booked up it might be nice to let them know outside of 6-8 weeks that you will be inviting them.

The second reason I would send them is if you are having a wedding on a holiday weekend- Labor Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July, NYE, etc. I think if you don''t tell people ahead of time you will see a large number of declines on these weekends.

Date: 7/22/2009 3:29:31 AM
Author: honey22

Date: 7/21/2009 11:10:54 PM

Author: lala2332

Date: 7/21/2009 9:44:13 PM

Author: honey22

Not totally necessary, but it gives your guests plenty of notice to make arrangements. If you are happy with a possible large number of declines then don''t send them. But if you would be devastated if certain people missed the wedding, then give them plenty of opportunity to be able to be there.

honey, i doubt anyone is happy with a large number of declines, unless they over-invited.

In planning my wedding I know that the people that i care about the most (family and my close friends) will be there and that if someone chooses not to come/can''t come that it will not be the end of the world or a friendship. I don''t know how to explain what I''m thinking but I would imagine that if I really want someone to be there then it probably mean they want to be there as well...and that the less i care, the less they care....parallel lines on a graph.

STDs seem like a rather new invention. Plenty of people managed to make it to weddings before they became common practice.

I do understand the fun of having them though!

Umm, that was kinda my point. If you really do care about people being able to make it, make an effort and send a piece of paper or email to everyone and give them plenty of chance to make it. IMO 6 weeks isn''t enough notice for many guests to make arrangements to travel etc.

I just think it''s polite to send them. They can be inexpensive and you don''t have to make it a big deal.

I got what you meant, Honey.

Of course we would all love to think that the people who really matter to us will make it a priority to attend our wedding. However, people are forgetful and it is nice to have something in front of you to remind you not to make plans on a particular weekend. Just gotta remember that our weddings will never be as important to other people as they are to us.

 

[laughwithme]

We are sending save-the-dates because we think they''re fun, they will be inexpensive ($100 for all of them) and it gives us a good excuse to put one of our engagement photos on something useful. We do have some OOT guests, though probably nothing above average, and I''m sure they will appreciate the advance notice.

 

[cocolaw]

yes, we did! mainly because people need to buy plane tickets.

 

[cocolaw]

i love our save the dates! we sent: save the dates

but we made major changes. it is a trifold invitation, so first we took off the calendar and just had:

"coco and mr coco are getting married nov 14 2009, please save the date" on the first line

"ceremony and dinner at uncle coco''s house big sur california" on the second line

"accommodations" with info on the third line

and lastly, we made the whole thing bright orange thermography(in the pic they do orange and gray). it was a big hit! everyone thought they were really cute and unique and the are very us. i''m very glad that we sent them, and at around $200 i think they were worth it! i love paper though...so this was a no brainer for me!

 

[CDNinNYC]

We sent out STDs but all our guests were out-of-towners. We put our website info. on the STD which helped direct our guests on how to book their trip to the wedding.

 

[CNOS128]

I don''t think they are necessary, unless perhaps you''re having a destination wedding, but they can be a lot of fun! Our save-the-dates were more whimsical, while our invitations were more formal. I love paper & stationery products, so it was really exciting for dork like me to get to send out two cards!
But people didn''t even start booking hotels and making arrangements until after our invitations went out.