Q's about Invitations and Save the Dates

[fmdelano]

I was wondering what everyone else has done, or plans to do:
Save the Dates get sent out to everyone you expect to travel to your wedding 8mos out. Are reply cards included? How do you keep track of who's reserving and not? Then a few months before the wedding you send out real invites. Do you include reply cards to the people you already know are coming and have made reservations? How about to people who you didn't include in the Save the Date list?
I was thinking of doing replies in the std's, and then sending out real wedding invites with @home reception invites that have a reply card for the @home reception only.
Does this make any sense? I confused myself just typing this! Help!

 

[melmel]

What I did was about a year out I sent out save the date magnets. Then at about 6 months I sent the actual invites. I didn't include any replys for the magnets since we're doing an intimate, it wasn't important. But my invites I have reply cards, and instead of the standard M____________ will/won't attend I did Mr. & Mrs. Last name will be staying at _______________ from _______ to _________. Our confirmation number is _____________. I'm doing gift bags so I needed the confirmations for that but I would assume it would really help for room blocks as well. Then at the bottom I just put a little note about please respond by ___ to meet with Disney requirements. Hope this helps.

Melissa

 

[Luvndisney]

I had question about this as well! It is very stressful to thnk about organzing this many people who are traveling. We have about 100 people coming from New York and I am not sure how to find out who is coming and who is not early enough? the response card idea is good though

 

[Mary626]

Disney sent out the save-the-date announcements on their lovely silver sparkled letterhead to a list of guest addresses I sent them. They did this about 9.5 months before our custom wedding - but our wedding is in one of the parks - i think I read somewhere that they send those out sooner for some reason (I could be remembering it wrong though)..

anyway, that was at least one less thing for me to worry about. I sent the save the dates to many more people then i think are actually going to come. I figure if I haven't heard anything one way or another from some people - they are probably not interested in coming and I will not send them an invitation. Of course I may change my mind as the date draws near - who knows!

Anyway that is my situation

 

[Codie]

Mary--I did the same as you. I sent everyone an invite though, because I thought it might be strange to get a Save the Date and then never get an invite. However, for two reasons I believe (1. We are doing an at home reception and 2. We sent invites to everyone even if it were unlikely they would come) we are currently at about a 43% acceptance rate, rather than the 80% disney talks about. Our rsvp date was last Friday and we still have 54 people to contact who did not reply, but my guess is the non-repliers probably aren't coming. I let Disney send out the STD because it was one less thing for me to worry about AND pay for!! I even sent one to my brother in Taiwan