Weddingbee Blog

It’s a common question amongst the engaged: “My wedding is in [insert month here]! When do we send our save the dates?” The sheer number of guidelines made my head spin. Ultimately, I loosely interpreted a snippet from Emily Post that states: “Save the date cards are usually mailed from three to four months prior to the wedding [...] but may be sent earlier for a destination wedding at a distant location.” The Tartlet translation? There is no set timing. Do what works best for you, your wedding, and your guests.

Since the majority of our guests are coming from out-of-town, Mr. Tartlet and I initially planned on mailing our STDs 6 months from the wedding. We were caught COMPLETELY off-guard when people started contacting us early in 2010 because they had to put in for their vacation days! The Tartlets found themselves in a bit of a pickle: we had grand plans to incorporate our engagement photos, but were running against the clock with a handful of people already notified via phone of our wedding date. We certainly didn’t want these to be an afterthought, so we adapted to the change and rapidly produced these bitty bundles to drop in the mail a full year before the wedding:

Because all of our guests will carefully open the envelope at the point (wishful thinking, I know), they’ll be greeted with this yummy looking liner and ribbon peeking out:

What happens if I give this ribbon a tug? *gasp* Little birdies flying the card out of the envelope!

The finished card, which of course our guests will hang for all to see:

We were super pleased with the results of our rush job, and have since found other ways to integrate our engagement photos into our wedding day. Are you using save the dates? Did you have to adjust your timing based on feedback from your guests?