destination save the date question

[sherlock10]

Hey everyone- I''ve been reading this page all day! I can''t seem to come up with an answer so I thought I''d throw it out to you all.

I''m having a destination wedding overseas and a reception here in the USA later. Not everyone invited to the reception will be invited to the wedding. Not everyone invited to the wedding will be invited to the reception (we''ll have one there too). Am I going to have several versions of my STD? Wouldn''t be the end of the world, but I''d like to know now so I can design them!

I saw this discussed before, and the concensus was they go to everyone, but, who do I send them to? Everyone? I don''t plan on sending them to the overseas guests, obviously (or not obviously, but I''m not ) Can we just go with the out-of-towners plus close friends and family in the location of the reception? I just can''t justify mailing 800 of these things, especially when I don''t know half of them!

Thanks in advance!!!

 

[Independent Gal]

Hmmm... well, I''m one of the ladies in a similar situation (two part, multi-country wedding). We just e-mailed our friends and family casually to say ''save the date''. That worked fine for us (and them).

Also, that way you can tailor the message to the audience. You can also conveniently neglect to casually e-mail certain people you have to invite, but aren''t really fussed about / don''t know, whereas I think you have to be consistent if you mail something concrete out to people.

 

[cara]

They are separate events with separate, non-overlapping guest lists. Mixing paper for the two events will create headaches/require detailed organization.

The purpose of the Save the Date is to give notice to those who need extra time to arrange their schedule - presumably for travel or those with inflexible schedules. Seems most relevant for the destination portion of your wedding. Send notice for that event to the appropriate people in a timely manner.

Separately, consider the stateside reception. If most of the intended guests of the stateside reception are local, you may not need save the dates. You could just send invitations 6-8 weeks out. If you also have out of town guests invited to the stateside reception, and want to give them more advance notice, you could sent them a save-the-date for the stateside reception. Or an email, etc.

You do not need to send save the dates to the entire guest list for each event. You can just send save-the-dates to a group, say out-of-towners. Of course it is useful for people to have more notice but once you do that you are locked into your list.

If you do choose to combine save the dates, be very very careful! Once you send it, you must invite them...