Save-the-date cards are used to inform your guests of a destination wedding, a wedding that is taking place during a holiday, or to inform your guests who need to make travel plans to attend your wedding. We cover the save-the-date timeline and wording based on the formality of your wedding.
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Save-the-date cards are used to let your guests know of your upcoming wedding well in advance. If you are planning your wedding for a holiday weekend, you should be sending your save-the-date cards out at least 4 months prior to your wedding.
If you are sending these cards to guests who live far away and must make travel plans to attend your wedding, you will want to send them the save-the-date cards 9 months to a year in advance. If you have guests coming from countries that need a visitors visa or special permissions to leave the country, the save-the-date cards need to arrive up to a year in advance.
Save-the-date cards are also used to let your guests know about a destination wedding, so your guests have time to make plans. These should also be sent about 9 months before your wedding day, so appropriate plans can be made.
Save-the-date cards can be sent to all guests, or just those who live far away, depending upon the need. Make sure that whomever receives a save-the-date card also receives a wedding invitation. The card’s formality and style should reflect that of your wedding invitations.
For a formal wedding, the save-the date card would also have formal wording:
Please save the date of
Saturday, the twenty-first of April two thousand and ten
for the wedding of
Susan Smith
And
Tom Jones
Invitation to follow
Mr. And Mrs. George Smith
Note that the date is fully written out. Invitation to follow is optional. Mr. and Mrs. Jones are the hosts of the wedding. If someone else would be hosting the party, then their names would be included at that line.
An informal save-the-date card would have this wording:
Please save the date of
Saturday, April 21, 2010
for the wedding of
Susan Smith
And
Tom Jones
Invitation to follow
Mr. And Mrs. George Smith
Here the date is written out differently. Again the Invitation to follow line is optional, and the hosts of the wedding are in the final line of the card.