So you’re recently engaged - huzzah! Cue the celebrations, the love, and of course, the planning.
Planning an entire event that celebrates a lifelong commitment can be a big task. But it’s also an incredibly exciting time to celebrate your relationship, work as a team with your partner, and express yourself creatively while telling the story of your love.
Doing so is going to require you hiring a team - your trusted wedding vendors! As a stationery designer covering all things design, announcements, and paper goods for my clients, some of the main questions I get are regarding the timeline. When do I send out my wedding invitations? When should the RSVP be? When do I send out my save the dates? I’ve got ya, boo!
Below, I’ve outlined some general timelines to follow when it comes to sending out your wedding invitations and save the dates, and when to start thinking about day-of stationery. If you’re having your paper goods custom designed by a professional designer, I’ve noted when to start having those conversations as well. Please bear in mind that these are minimum recommendations, and every designer is different in terms of the time that they may require for projects.
- Mail Save the Dates (local wedding): 6 months before wedding day
- Mail Save the Dates (destination wedding): 8 months before wedding day
- Mail Wedding Invitations (local wedding): 3 months before wedding day
- Mail Wedding Invitations (destination wedding): 4 months before wedding day
- RSVP Date: 1 month before wedding day
- When to reach out to your custom designer for local wedding invitations: 8 months before wedding day
- When to reach out to your custom designer for destination wedding invitations: 10 months before wedding day
- When to reach out to your custom designer for save the dates: 14 months before wedding day
For on the day stationery items (like programs and signage), you’re going to want to be securing the details and fully working on them 2-3 months prior to your wedding day. However, when working with a custom designer you’ll start determining the needs and the design early on in the process while save the dates and invitations are being created, putting you ahead of the game.
While the timelines listed are a recommended minimum of when to reach out and should leave you with plenty of time, it’s truly NEVER too early to start having conversations if you’re going the custom route. That’s because the idea, design, and production are created for you from scratch from the ground up, so the earlier the better to ensure there is ample time for the process to take place. Don’t be afraid to start shopping and putting out feelers as soon as you have a creative idea! Even if you don’t have every detail ironed out or the guest list finalized yet, it allows your designer to start coming up with designs, ideas, and figuring out production.
On the flip side, at Serif & Spice I understand that life happens and you might be bogged down with other aspects of planning and life in general. So if you didn’t have a chance to reach out sooner and require a quicker turnaround than the guidelines listed above, I will absolutely take on your project if I am able to! Reach out to me, and we will figure it out together.
Curious about how the creative process with Serif & Spice works? Learn about that here.
Happy planning and creative ideating!