When to send wedding invitations, and when to order them

How far in advance to send wedding invitations comes down to a few windows most US planners and stationers work to. They're conventions, not laws, and the right answer for your wedding depends on where your guests are travelling from.

• You skipped save the dates. Mail the invitations 10 to 12 weeks out instead, so the invitation does the save the date's job.
• Your date sits on a holiday weekend or in peak season. Guests' plans fill early. Go to 10 to 12 weeks.
• Many guests travel internationally. Send their invitations first, two weeks ahead of the rest, because international post is slower and less predictable.

Enter your wedding date and we'll count back for you.

Six to eight months before the wedding, or eight to twelve for a destination wedding or a date on a holiday weekend. Send them as soon as you know the date, the city and roughly who's coming. They only have one job: get the date into calendars before anything else does.

Here's the landmine. Your save the dates print months before your invitations, so whatever paper, foil shade and typeface you choose for them, the invitation has to match half a year later. We keep the full spec from your first order, so the suite is built on the same paper, colours and type. Letterpress ink is mixed by hand for each run, so a shade can move very slightly between two runs months apart. A foil we stock is the same film every time, so it holds a colour more steadily than a mixed ink. If an exact match matters, put the colour that has to match in a stocked foil, and order the pieces that will sit side by side, like the invitation and reply card, together.

Design the save the date as the opening note of the suite rather than a separate project. It saves you a second round of decisions later, and it means the invitation already has a starting point.

Set the RSVP deadline 3 to 4 weeks before the wedding. Your caterer, venue and seating plan all need final numbers, and you'll spend the first week after the deadline chasing the people who didn't reply. For a destination wedding, go to 4 to 6 weeks, because guests' travel bookings and your venue's room block usually close earlier.

Give guests at least 3 to 4 weeks between the invitation arriving and the deadline. Two weeks sounds efficient and produces a wave of late replies. For the reply card itself, see RSVP card wording.

This one catches a lot of couples. If you want guest names printed on place cards or escort cards, those names go through the same proof and about 3 weeks of production as the suite. That means names need to be final about 6 weeks before the wedding, which is before a 3 to 4 week RSVP deadline. You have three honest options:

1. Bring the RSVP deadline forward to about 7 weeks, and mail the invitations at about 11 weeks so guests still get a full month to reply. That leaves you a week to chase late replies before the names lock.
2. Order the place cards unnamed with the suite, pressed in the same foil or letterpress, and have the names written by hand or by a calligrapher once replies are in. This is the one I'd recommend for most weddings.
3. Print names flat in ink on a light card and keep the pressed finish on the shared parts of the card, which keeps the cost per name down. Names in foil need their own small die each, so personalised foil is priced per name. On a black or dark card, ink names won't show, so dark place cards go unnamed and are written in white or metallic pen.

Menus and programs don't carry guest names, so they can be ordered with the suite or any time up to about 6 weeks before.

Place cards · Menus and programs

Send save the dates 8 to 12 months out and invitations 8 to 12 weeks out. Your guests are booking flights, leave and often a second trip around yours, and your venue's room block will have its own release date. Put that date on the details card so nobody misses it.

Three practical notes:

• Post the international envelopes first. Give guests abroad an extra two weeks; international mail is slow and uneven.
• Let guests abroad reply online. A US-stamped reply envelope is no use to someone posting it from another country. Put your wedding website on the details card, or print a QR code to the RSVP page. QR codes always print in flat dark ink on a light card, never in foil or embossed, so every phone can read them.
• Plan where the suites ship. US orders ship from the US, EU orders ship from Berlin, and orders to other countries ship from the US and usually take 5 to 10 business days in transit. If you're marrying abroad with guests on both sides, tell us when you start and we'll plan the shipping with you before you pay.

First, don't panic-order. Tell us your wedding date and mail date before you place anything, and we'll say honestly whether the suite you want fits. We don't offer rush production, and we don't sell guaranteed delivery dates. Expedited shipping can shorten the transit; on Custom orders, ask us before you order. Production stays about 3 weeks, so here's what actually protects your dates, in the order I'd use it:

1. Simplify the build. One colour, one process, on one side. The production estimate doesn't shrink, but a simpler build needs fewer proof rounds and has fewer places for a problem to start.
2. Drop a piece. Move the details card to your wedding website and go with the invitation and reply card on their own. That's one less piece to proof and one less to assemble.
3. Approve the proof quickly. Production is counted from approval, so a proof that sits for a week costs you a week. Have the wording agreed with both families before the concept stage, not during it.
4. Send a digital save the date if even that is late, and save the pressed paper for the invitation, the piece people keep.
5. Mail at 6 weeks, not 8. It's still within the convention for a local wedding. Bring the RSVP deadline to 3 weeks and chase early.

What I wouldn't do is rush the proof. A misspelled name on a finished invitation almost always starts with a proof read in a hurry.

Send thank-you cards within about three months of the wedding, sooner for gifts that arrived before it. Order them with the suite, not after. They run on the same paper and in the same foil or ink, so they match without a second set of decisions, and they're waiting for you when you get home.

If you're early in the planning, this is a small, low-risk way to make the big decisions without rushing them. Our sample kit is US$ 8 with free US shipping, and you get a US$ 10 credit on your first order. I'll be straight with you: it isn't a wedding box. Today it's a bundle of real production samples, mostly business cards, plus the hot foil swatch card with every foil we keep on the shelf. It won't show you your invitation, but it puts real stock, pressed finishes and real foil in your hand, which is what you're actually deciding between. Hold the foils against your envelope colour in your own light before you choose.