Timing guide

When to send save the dates

Six to eight months out for most weddings, ten to twelve for a destination. The harder question is what has to be settled before you can send one at all.

A designer's table seen from above with swatches and trimmed cards

A save the date is not an invitation and not a courtesy. It is a claim on a specific Saturday in somebody else's year, and once it has gone out it cannot be undone without a real apology. That is why the timing question is less useful than the readiness question: the date has to be contracted, the venue has to be booked, and the guest list has to be final enough that everybody who gets a save the date will definitely get an invitation.

That last condition is where most of the damage happens. Save the dates go out early, when the list is still optimistic, and then the budget contracts and somebody has to be cut. There is no polite way to un-invite a person who has already booked a flight. The working rule is to send save the dates only to the guests you would still invite if the list had to shrink by a third.

Beyond weddings, save the dates earn their place for anything that requires a guest to arrange travel or childcare: a milestone birthday weekend, a family reunion, a vow renewal, a bar or bat mitzvah with out-of-town family. For a party people can attend on a normal evening, a save the date is noise. The invitation on its own is enough.

The timeline, working backwards

Ten to twelve months out

Destination weddings and holiday weekends

Guests are buying flights and booking time off. Anything less and you are asking them to absorb the cost of your late decision.

Six to eight months out

Most weddings

Far enough ahead to claim the date, close enough that it stays in mind. This is the working default.

Four to six months out

Large non-wedding events

Reunions, milestone birthdays and vow renewals where guests travel but the planning burden is lighter.

Never

Before the venue is contracted

A save the date names a date and usually a city. Both have to be true when it lands.

What goes wrong

The mistakes worth avoiding

Sending to a list that is still being negotiated. Everyone who gets one has to get an invitation.
Putting the ceremony time on it. A save the date carries names, date, city and a wedding website. Times change; dates do not.
Sending one for an event nobody needs to travel to, which just makes the real invitation feel like a repeat.
Designing it in a style nothing else in the suite will match, so the invitation arrives looking like it came from a different wedding.
Forgetting that the website URL on the save the date has to still work eight months later.

Questions people ask

What has to be on a save the date?

Both names, the date, the city, and the words "invitation to follow". A website address if you have one. Not the ceremony time, not the venue address, not the registry.

Can we send save the dates digitally and invitations on paper?

Yes, and a lot of people do exactly that. The save the date is the easiest piece to send as a file because it carries no reply and no logistics.

Do save the dates go to the wedding party too?

Yes. They already know, but they get every piece of paper everyone else gets, including the invitation.

Is a photo required?

No, and a bad photo is worse than none. If you have an engagement photograph you love, it is the single easiest way to make the card feel like yours. If you do not, type and colour carry it fine.

Want the wording set properly?

Wording is included in anything designed here. Tell me who is hosting and anything delicate about it, and I will set it and show you two versions to choose between. $45 for a First Look concept, back in three days, and it comes off whatever you book.

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