If you’ve recently gotten engaged, you’ve probably got “order wedding stationery” on your mile-long to-do list. Figuring out when to order and send your invitations requires its own designated timeline.
Like everything in wedding planning, a stationery timeline can be completely unique to you based on how long your engagement is, where you’re getting your stationery from, when you need final guest counts by and more.
When coming up with a wedding stationery timeline, here’s my biggest tip: work backwards. This is how I approach this with my clients, and it helps us come up with their best custom wedding stationery timeline.
Figure out your RSVP due date.
To figure out your RSVP due date, the first date to look at is when your catering company needs their final number. Generally, I’ve seen caterers ask for a final guest count one month before the couple’s wedding date. In a perfect world, this would be a GREAT date to give your guests to RSVP by – however, we both know that not everyone will RSVP by that date. I tell my wedding couples to give guests 2 weeks to give you a final answer if they will be attending your wedding or not. So, generally speaking, your RSVP is 6 weeks out from your wedding day.
(as a side note, when reaching out to your wedding guests that haven’t RSVP’d, I recommend texting them something along these lines “Hey! I saw that you haven’t RSVP’d to my wedding yet and it’s past the RSVP deadline. Let me know by *insert date* if you will be able to make it, otherwise we can just celebrate another time. THANKS!”)
Figure out when to mail your invitations.
How far out do you need to notify guests about your wedding? Sending wedding invitations too far from your RSVP date can lead to guests forgetting or losing their invitation, but sending your wedding invitations too close to your RSVP can lead to guests not receiving their wedding invitation until right before the reply date or worse, after the RSVP date!
This answer is a little more convoluted. Here are a couple questions that will help you figure it out.
- Did you send out Save the Dates so guests know when you’re getting married and the invitations are purely a formal invitation? Or is this the first time they’ve heard about your wedding date?
- Are most of your guests traveling from afar? Is this a destination wedding where they will have to book airfare, a rental car, hotel accommodations, etc? Or are the majority of them in town?
- What season are you getting married? Winter and Summer can be busy with different holidays and travel plans!
If your guests are mostly local and received a Save the Date card, they already have this date in their mind (and hopefully on their calendar!), 1-2 months out from your RSVP date is a nice sweet spot for local weddings.
If it’s a busy season with lots of holidays or guests are traveling far, shoot to send out invitations between 3-4 months out from your RSVP date.
When do you need to have the invitations?
The next date you have to worry about is when to receive your wedding invitations. This is a more open date. If you are hand-addressing all your invitations, try to give yourself around 2 weeks to do all the addressing and stuffing envelopes. This process will take less time if your wedding envelopes are already addressed and you only have to put together the wedding invitations. If you’re getting your envelopes addressed by a calligrapher, make sure you ask them how far out they need the envelopes!
When do you need to contact the stationery designer?
If you’re getting your wedding invitations custom made, this is when you’ll want to look to the designer for help. Every wedding stationer has their own timeline that they work with – some are able to churn it out quickly, others will spend hours drawing and re-drawing your stationery to make it absolutely perfect for your wedding day.
When I’m designing stationery for couples, I generally like to work about 3-4 months out from their send date depending on the complexity of the invitation. If it is a simple wedding invitation with beautiful cursive and simple fonts, it will take less time than a totally hand drawn wedding invitation. With all the revisions, it will typically take around 3 months plus 2 weeks (from your envelope stuffing / mail out date) to get the invitations in from the local print shop.
If there is a wedding stationer that you absolutely love, be sure to book them early so they have space carved out in their calendar to properly work on your wedding invitations. Some people only take a certain number of clients a year – so better get on that early if there’s someone you absolutely love (this is the same for all vendors. If you love them, book them early!)
That’s a lot of information, I KNOW. But you made it to the end, so here’s an easy chart to reference when thinking about your wedding stationery timeline.
| TIMELINE | WEDDING STATIONERY EVENT |
| 4 Weeks Out from Wedding | Caterers Final Guest Count Due |
| 6 Weeks Out from Wedding | RSVP Due Date |
| 3-4 Months Out from Wedding | Mail Out Invitations (if mostly local and Save the Dates were sent out) |
| 5-6 Months Out from Wedding | Mail Out Invitations (if guests are traveling far and no dates were sent out) |
| 6-10 Months Out from Wedding | Reach out to Stationery Designer |
