Invitation timing...help!

[Luvndisney]

Hello everyone! As some of you know I am getting married on July 15th, 2006, and inviting 104 people all from New York. I am trying to get advice on the timing of invitations sent out, rsvp, etc. Here is the story(briefly) Disney will send out our save the dates in a few weeks. We are planning on sending out our invites early so that we can get an approximate count early on - so we are thinking of sending them out in november which is about 8 months. We are placing the rsvp date as january 15th or something like that. How does this sound?

The reasoning behind the early rsvp is b/c (as horrible as this sounds!) we have a "B" list of people we will invite if there is room. Our guest list was at 150 and we only invited 104.

Does the timing sound ok? How did others work this out?

P.s. did brides place the dinner choice on their reception cards?
curious b/c we really can't do this...so how can i find out what people will want before hand? ideas?

 

[hmgolden]

We sent invitations out in mid April for our June 25th wedding. I would worry about sending out invitations so early. Some brides have had success sending out Save the Date cards and requesting people to respond if they would be plan on attending the wedding. The choices are usually go something along the lines of 'we will definetly attend, we can't come, we would love to come but are undecided'. Perhaps you could do something like that? We found that during the holiday season we saw or heard from enough of our guests that we had a very good idea of what our guest count would be. In the end, our guess was 3 under what we actually had.

We didn't put dinner choices on our cards, as we had a buffet. Personally I would wait to send out invitations until you have settled on your menu. Its often hard enough to get guests to RSVP to the wedding itself - getting them to fill out and send back a second menu card could be near impossible.

 

[Luvndisney]

Good suggestions. But what about those people on my list that are back-ups? I need to give them all time to make travel arrangements....

I guess the problem I am having is isolated to my guests. There are about 60 definites and 40 that said maybe. These "maybe" people are people that could end up all saying no about 1 months before the wedding and then people who really would come would never be invited.

 

[twojo21]

send out save the dates to everyone on your guest list, a & b. tell your em that the stds from disney be mailed to you so you can include a card like hmgolden suggested with a prelimanry count/rsvp _ we will definetly be there, _ we are unsure or _ we unfortunately cant attend, so you can get a ballpark figure. i think a & b lists are bad ideas with disney because your guests need to save $ & make travel reservations in advance for hotel, airfare & requesting time off. plus disney only holds the room discounts for your custom wedding 30 days out. my em said disney does has a high rsvp rate of 80-90% so just plan accordingly, you are bound to have it least acouple no rsvps.

as for invites i would send them at the 4 month mark with final rsvps, give yourself it least 45 days from your wedding as disney will need final counts at 30 days out & you want to leave sometime for last minute calls to no response guests & not be rushed. thats what were doing with the invites.

 

[rosiejo]

Good suggestions. But what about those people on my list that are back-ups? I need to give them all time to make travel arrangements....

I guess the problem I am having is isolated to my guests. There are about 60 definites and 40 that said maybe. These "maybe" people are people that could end up all saying no about 1 months before the wedding and then people who really would come would never be invited.

Ok this may sound harsh - but if you know that people will change their mind - don't invite them. Make sure you invite the people you want to be at your wedding. If you really want to invite the maybes then do so - but if you're only doing that for "political/family" reasons don't invite them.

People have to make arrangements to come to DIsney so you'd think definites would be definties... but don't count on it... we booked air fares/ villa/ park tickets 12 months out for our immediate family and then at 90 days out my parents in law 2b decided they didn't want to come and we had to try and unravel the booking!

 

[melmel]

I'm having an intimate so this may be a bit different, but what I did was save the dates at a year and then invites at 6 months. In my invites I made sure to mention that Disney needed the info by the RSVP date of 4 months out so that way I had the info in plenty of time to plan PS's. I knew his fam would drag their feet booking if I didn't make it so that Disney required their info.

Hope this helps

Melissa

 

[*DisneyBride*]

We're getting married in Aug 06 and we're planning on sending the invitations in January with a RSVP by April. We're doing it so early just so we have a better idea if we'll meet all the requirements of the contrac. All our guest are coming from Canada and Europe. So I agree about sending them out early. Getting married in Disney makes it different and the conventional rules are kind of out the window. I think it's just personal preference. I'm the type of person that needs things organizied months in advance.

 

[Luvndisney]

Thanks for all the suggestions. My family will drag their feet to if I don't tell them we need a number earlier than we do.

P.s. the "maybe" people are people I want at my wedding but they just are the type of people that wait til the last miute to change plans and cancel them. If my reception location could fit 150 I would invite everyone.

 

[Codie]

I say invite them all...Where is your location and how many does it hold? You can always change your location...

 

[hwygirl1928]

Call me crazy!!! I sent out invites in June and said in the RSVP that I wanted to know by August 31st who was coming or not. I am having a small custom wedding, so I really wanted to know how many people I was having so that I could decide on the reception location. I wanted to give my guest enough time to figure out whether or not they could save up the money or not, that is why I gave them 2 months to decide. About 2 weeks after I sent out the invitations, I sent out an information package. It had info and cost on things like the Disney Hotels, Flights, Disney Golf, Cirque Du Soleil, Hopper Passes, etc... Then it also had some information on other stuff like how you can buy Disney Hoppers with your airmiles, and stuff like that. Also with that info package I had a questionnaire that I asked everyone to send back. On the questionnaire I had questions such as: Do you think you will stay at a Disney Resort? Would you be interested in Golfing on the morning of the wedding? Does anyone who is attending the wedding have any special dietary needs? And other questions like that. Everyone was so happy to have all of that info to help them make a decision, it worked out well! Now I am at my eight month mark, so the guest who told me they wanted to come will be getting the Save The Date from Disney, then in early December I will be sending out a newsletter and some other forms for my guest to fill out. I have already started to work on it and it looks really good so far! But I have lots of time to make it even better, 2 months actually! So that is what I have done anyways! Hope this helps in some way!

 

[DeeDeeDis]

Many moons ago we were invited to a wedding at disney. The couple sent out invitations about 8 months in advanced and gave us all two months to respond.
We live in Mass so I thought this was terrific, it allowed us time to see

a. what the cost would be for our family of 5 to travel to florida (DH, Me, and three DS) for flights vs driving, accomodations, park tickets etc...

b. how we could extend this into a family vacation and if we could afford to do this

c. Request the time off from work

I vote for the early invitations

 

[Codie]

My wedding was September 1st. We told all the family and important friends the date at the beginning of March. Disney sent out the STD's at the beginning of April. I sent out the invitations over Memorial Day weekend and had them out by June 1st. My response cards indicated <<___I will attend in Florida; ___I will attend locally; __I regret I cannot attend>>. My regret is that I gave everyone until July 15th to respond (when they had already known since beginning of April) and only about 50% sent back their response cards! For those individuals only invited to my local reception--I sent them out a separate invitation the second week of July with a July 25 response date--I got those back much faster! You need to give Disney a count 30 days ahead for payment, so you have to send out the invites a little sooner. I vote for early invitations--I could have planned better and more efficiently if I had asked for a June 15 or 25 response instead of July!! However, I think you need to be prepared for more things that may "come up" where people will change their plans if you do it too early.

 

[Luvndisney]

Thanks everyone. I've decided that it's best with my family to set the date early. so i am sending them out at the end of next month and an rsvp date of january 15th. By then they will know if they can go or not and let us estimate our expenses.

Thanks again!!