Wedding Etiquette for Sending Invitations

You have just become engaged and have made all the rounds of announcements of the wonderful event. Now that things have settled, you and your future husband have finally picked a date.

The next thing to do is shop for the perfect invitation.Wedding etiquette for sending invitations guides you to get this in the mail as soon as you have everything set in stone, so picking the design and RSVP card should be the first thing on the list along with venue, dress, etc.

If you know you will have guests from long distances, you may want to consider sending a “save the date” card now to give them time to make arrangements.

No more than four months before the big day, you should make your final selection of a wedding invitation and place your order. This gives you plenty of time for any glitches that may arise. Usually, you can expect to have them in with lots of time to spare so that you can address them all properly.

Following wedding etiquette for addressing the envelopes, you should begin this task around three months ahead of time. Depending on how many guests you plan to invite, this may take a while. You might need to have a checklist to check off when an RSVP has been returned.

Wedding etiquette for sending invitations does not require that you put their name on the response card, but a name or number would be helpful to you in keeping track of who has replied and who hasn’t.

Wedding etiquette for sending invitations suggests mailing your wedding invitations 6 to 8 weeks before the wedding date. If the wedding date is near a holiday when people may make other plans, it is advisable to stay closer to the 8-week suggestion.

At the two-month mark, you should determine the postage of a wedding invitation that has been put together fully: invitation, response card, inner and outer envelope. It is good wedding etiquette when sending the invitations to provide postage for the response card also.

Make sure to have the RSVP date set at no less than 2 weeks before the event to give yourself enough time to give final headcounts to the caterer and/or venue.

On the day of, or as close as possible to, wedding etiquette for sending invitations tells us to send out wedding announcements to those who could not be invited.

You may have had to limit the number of guests due to venue size, budget, or the fact that it’s a second wedding and kept small. A wedding announcement lets those people know of your change in marital status without obligating you to provide more seating.

Of course, once you have followed proper wedding etiquette in sending your invitations, you don’t want to stop there. After the wedding you will need to send out thank you notes, which is a whole other set of etiquette rules.