Weddingbee boards

Hi All,

I am flip flopping on an issue and can't decide what to do.  I am hoping you ladies can offer me some insight. We are having a destination wedding in December.  Our guests will need to start booking at the begining of Febuary. 

Here is the problem.  I have designed our Save the Dates and they have 6 inserts along with a RSVP card (because we will need to know who is coming long before it is traditionally time to send out the invitations).  Since all the important info is in the Save The Dates it seems like my STD's are acting more like an invitation and the invitations are acting more like a reminder of "hey don't forget about the expensive trip you booked".

The other issues I see is that we are inviting about 175 people of which only 30-40 will probably be able to attend.  Instead of the standard invitation I would love to send small "here some cool stuff to get you excited about the Riviera Maya" packages to the people who are coming but what do I send to the people who are not?  Do I make a standard invitation and send it to those people or do I need to send anything at all since they told us they were not coming?

Thanks in advance for you advice!

It definitely sounds like your STD's have become your invites. In this case, especially as people will need to be booking as early as Feb, I'd forgo STD's altogether and just send them out as invites (we're doing something similar btw, though ours isn't a DW, but half our guest list are OOTers who live half a world away). And I'd love to get a package in the mail closer to the date about the exciting things I could do whilst not spending time with the bride and groom for that week/end. And in that case I think if someone has RSVP'd no then you won't need to send them anything.

this is what happened to us.  we decided to forego the STDs and just do full invites very early (same timeline, actually - Feb - December).  That way, we could tailor our correspondence for the folks that actually do RSVP yes.  Also, you are going to have people that say they are coming, but in fact do not. It's just how it goes with a DW - might as well skip the extra expense of the STD.  We also had a kicka$$ website - PM me for more info.

@ crebre80:  I wish we could do email STD's but I would say 1/3 of our guests would never get them because they simply never check thier email.

@Melissabegins: I am so glad to hear another bride ran into this.  Did you have anyone put a deposit down with your travel agent and then tell you later they are not coming?  I am assuming if they put down a deposit (which we are giving them a date to book by) then they are serious about going.  Or am I wrong to assume this?

@SXMBride: Thanks.  I am glad to hear that people are responding.  I was a little worried if people would blow it off like most guests do RSVP's.  We are putting our invitations together next weekend so hopefully I will know soon if sending them a year in advance was a good decision.