engagement announcement or STD

[TooPatient]

I am recently engaged (March 5) and am not sure what to do as far as engagement announcements go. We have not set a date yet but are looking at next summer (2011), probably the end of July.

I plan to send out STDs but don''t want to send them too early. I was thinking sometime in January would be good timing for the STDs so that people have enough time to plan but not so much as to forget or be too far out to plan for.

So here is the question --
Should I also send out engagement announcements (have to be paper since many of my family/family-friends don''t use computers or read newspaper stuff) or just wait for the STDs? I don''t want to overwhelm people with mail or come across as looking for gifts, but I don''t want anyone to feel hurt that they didn''t know about the engagement sooner.


ETA: My family is not exactly known for formal events (my gradfather -- seriously -- suggested that we could have the wedding at the annual "fish feed" they host -- an outdoor potluck event where the men deep fry fish while the women take plastic wrap off of salads) so I don''t really have anyone IRL to turn to for the etiquette and how-to questions.

 

[Guilty Pleasure]

I would not recommend sending out engagement announcements, as people may see that as a "pre-invitation" to the wedding, like a save-the-date. Since you don''t have plans or a guest list yet, you wouldn''t want to hurt feelings or confuse people.

Are most of your older family members in the same little town? If so, you could put an announcement in the local paper. That is pretty common.

Otherwise, I would send an email out or personal phone call to the computer literate, and phone calls or informal (i.e. handwriten, not mass produced) letters. Use small notecards, so you can fill up the space with only writing a few sentences


I could be totally wrong, but that''s just what I would suggest.

 

[TooPatient]

Date: 3/15/2010 9:35:33 PM
Author: Guilty Pleasure
I would not recommend sending out engagement announcements, as people may see that as a ''pre-invitation'' to the wedding, like a save-the-date. Since you don''t have plans or a guest list yet, you wouldn''t want to hurt feelings or confuse people.

Are most of your older family members in the same little town? If so, you could put an announcement in the local paper. That is pretty common.

Otherwise, I would send an email out or personal phone call to the computer literate, and phone calls or informal (i.e. handwriten, not mass produced) letters. Use small notecards, so you can fill up the space with only writing a few sentences


I could be totally wrong, but that''s just what I would suggest.

Handwritten note is a nice idea. The rest can read it in the newspaper announcement.

Great advice on the small notecards

I''ll remember that when I''m making my selections.

 

[RaiKai]

In your case, I would do a "general announcement" if you feel it is important via the newspaper, and then do the save-the-dates a few months out from the wedding. As someone else pointed out, you don''t want to create a guest list, without intending to create a guest list!

I never knew save-the-dates existed until I got engaged and started actually reading about wedding stuff. We just relied on word of mouth and the official invitations. We told our family and friends about our engagement little by little as we talked to them, then just called up those we actually wanted to come to our destination wedding to see if the dates worked for them (it was a very small guest list so it was easy to do!) and sent those who said they were coming the invites Totally not by the book!