Wedding Invitation Etiquette
Unsure on when you should send out your Save the Dates? Or whether you should include a dress code on your wedding invitation? Perhaps you’re unsure whether to include a gift registry?
Well fear not lovelies, for our wonderful team have put together this handy guide of frequently asked questions to help guide and inform you through your wedding invitation etiquette. After over a decade working in the wedding industry, it’s safe to say that we’re often asked the same questions over and over again – after all, the majority of couples only plan to get married once!
It’s perfectly natural to feel overwhelmed when planning your wedding day. Often the biggest celebration of a couple’s lifetime, there are many tasks to juggle – and scarily big financial commitments to navigate through. We hope that you find this guide makes things a little easier, but feel free to reach out to our friendly team here if you need any further guidance.
WHEN SHOULD I SEND OUT MY WEDDING INVITATIONS?
Ah, the big question – and one we hear ALL the time! As a rough guideline, we recommend the following:
SAVE THE DATES – aim to send these 10-12 months before ideally. Any earlier, and you risk your guests not yet having their work holiday entitlement available to book days off, or even diaries available to add the date to!
WEDDING INVITATIONS – traditionally sent just 6 weeks before back when the bride’s parents formally hosted the wedding, today’s modern weddings are months in the planning, and have many suppliers (and their deadlines) to co-ordinate. We therefore suggest mailing out to guests around 6 – 8 months prior, with ideally a minimum of 2 months for your guests to RSVP. This gives you plenty of time to chase any non-replies, and liaise with your suppliers.
Of course, you should always bear in mind the specifics of your own wedding day plans and individual guest list. If more notice is warranted, then go for it! For example, if you’re hosting a destination wedding with your guests required to book extensive travel arrangements abroad, then more notice to research and book the trip would no doubt be appreciated.
SHOULD I INCLUDE A DRESS CODE?
Including a dress code with your wedding invitations helps to subtly convey the type of celebration you’d like to have – i.e how formal or informal an affair! Your guests usually appreciate guidance on this one to ensure that they feel prepared and dressed suitably on the day.
SHOULD I SEND SAVE THE DATES TO MY EVENING GUESTS?
If you’re opting to invite some additional guests to your evening reception (as many of our couples do), then we recommend only sending a main invitation. Evening guests tend to need less notice as they usually don’t have to consider long-distance travel or booking holiday time – and it would be disappointing for a guest to receive an initial Save the Date, assume they were invited to the full day’s celebrations, before then realising they were evening invitation only. For this reason, if you decide as a couple that Save the Dates are a must for your evening guests also, please ensure you have a differently, worded version to your day guests to avoid any confusion.
SHOULD MY GUEST’S NAMES BE WRITTEN ON THE INVITATION CARDS THEMSELVES?
As a design-focussed studio, we would always choose to advise against this – preferring instead to address envelopes only to preserve the integrity of your beautiful wedding invitation designs, and avoid cluttering up the spacing with information that is duplicated. However, separate guest name cards / mini-tags can be affixed to the invitation suite itself as a cute design feature if you feel strongly on this one!
IS A GIFT REGISTRY NEEDED?
Gift registries were typically set-up to allow the guests to help set up the couple for their future married life together. As the majority of modern day couples already have set up home together pre-marriage, this can feel somewhat inappropriate! Consider that your guests wish to support the start to your future life, and any guidance around what can help with this will no doubt be appreciated! Many of our couples opt to politely request financial contributions to purchasing / renovating a first owned home or dream honeymoon, and we have lots of wording available to assist our couples with this somewhat awkward request!
Any unanswered questions? Please contact us for more information, we’d love to have a chat about your exciting plans!
