When to Send Save the Dates: The Complete Timeline

Send save the dates 6 to 8 months before a local wedding and 9 to 12 months before a destination wedding. The full invitation follows later — 6 to 8 weeks out for local, 10 to 12 weeks for destination. Below is the complete timeline by wedding type, plus the two decisions couples get stuck on: who should receive one, and whether you can send before the venue is signed.

Save the date timeline: quick reference

Find your wedding type in the left column and read across. Every row assumes the date is already confirmed — that is the one condition that has to be true before anything else on this page applies.

When do you send save the dates?

You send a save the date at the moment two things become true at once: the date is locked, and guests still have enough runway to arrange their lives around it. For most weddings that intersection falls 6 to 8 months out.

It helps to be clear about what a save the date is actually for. It is not a miniature invitation. It carries no schedule, no dress code, no RSVP. Its only job is to reserve a square in someone's calendar before something else takes it. The things guests need that runway for are concrete:

• Requesting annual leave, which many employers require months in advance
• Booking flights while fares are still sensible
• Reserving accommodation before the local supply is taken
• Arranging childcare or pet care for a weekend away
• Declining the other wedding, christening or work trip that lands on the same weekend

That last one matters more than couples expect. Wedding season is dense, and the guests you most want there — close friends in their late twenties and thirties — are the ones fielding the most competing invitations. The save the date is how you get to the front of that queue.

How far in advance should you send save the dates?

Six to eight months is the answer for the overwhelming majority of weddings. The useful part is understanding the boundaries either side of it, so you can judge your own wedding rather than following a rule blindly.

Earlier than 10 months: usually too early

Past about ten months, most guests cannot see their calendar clearly enough for the message to land. The card is admired, stuck to a fridge, and forgotten. Worse, an early send often means you are announcing before your own plans are stable — and the risk of having to move the date rises the further out you go. The exceptions are genuine: destination weddings, holiday weekends, and any wedding where a meaningful share of guests are flying long-haul.

Six to eight months: the standard window

This is where planning horizons and memory overlap. Guests can request leave, prices for travel are still reasonable, and the wedding is close enough to feel real. If you take one number from this article, take this one.

Later than 4 months: you are compressing everyone

A save the date arriving four months out still helps, but it collapses the gap between it and the invitation, which lands 6 to 8 weeks before the day. At that point you are sending two messages inside eight weeks and the second one does most of the work anyway. If you are already inside four months, consider skipping ahead — see the short-engagement section below.

Never send before the date is certain

This overrides every other timing consideration. A save the date is a commitment request, and asking people to hold a date twice erodes the goodwill you will need later. If the venue contract is unsigned and the date could still shift by a weekend, wait. If the date is fixed and only the venue is undecided, send.

When to send save the dates for a destination wedding

Nine to twelve months. Push towards the full twelve if any of the following apply: the wedding is in peak season for that region, guests are crossing more than one time zone, the destination has limited accommodation, or you are asking people to take more than two days off work.

Destination save the dates should do slightly more work than a local one, because guests are making financial decisions on the strength of them:

• Give the date range, not just the ceremony date. If you expect guests to arrive Friday and leave Monday, say so. People book the wrong number of nights when you only give them a Saturday.
• Name the nearest airport. One line saves fifty separate messages later.
• Signal the rough cost bracket. A sentence like "we have held rooms from around €120 a night, details to follow" lets guests decide early and honestly.
• Say when the invitation is coming. "Full details in the spring" stops the follow-up questions.

If guests are travelling from several countries, the save the date is also where language first becomes a practical problem. A Pressed Love invitation publishes in 29 languages: each guest opens the link and sees it in their own device language, with a manual switcher if they prefer another. You write the source text once. For an international guest list that is the single biggest reason to make the save the date digital rather than printed.

When to send save the dates for a holiday-weekend wedding

Ten to twelve months. Holiday weekends — public holidays, long weekends, the days either side of Christmas and New Year — are the most contested dates in anyone's year. You are not competing with other weddings so much as with family traditions, pre-booked breaks and the plans people make annually without thinking.

Two things to add to a holiday-weekend save the date. First, acknowledge it directly: a line like "we know it is a long weekend, and we would love you to spend part of it with us" reads as considerate rather than presumptuous. Second, be explicit about which day the wedding falls on within the weekend, so guests can build the rest of their break around it instead of writing off all three days.

Expect a slightly lower acceptance rate than a normal Saturday regardless of how early you send, and plan the guest list with that in mind.

When to send save the dates for a short-engagement wedding

Short engagements do not need a different philosophy, just faster execution. The deciding factor is how much room is left between today and the wedding.

• 6 to 9 months out: send the save the date now — within a week or two of fixing the date. Do not wait for a design you love; the message matters more than the artwork at this stage. The full invitation still goes out at 6 to 8 weeks.
• 5 to 6 months out: a save the date is still worth sending, but keep it short and follow with the invitation at 8 weeks. Consider telling your closest guests by phone or voice note first so the important people are not finding out by broadcast.
• Under 5 months out: skip the save the date. Put the effort into getting the full invitation out 8 to 10 weeks before the day with every practical detail included, and set the RSVP deadline 3 weeks out. Two separate announcements inside a short window dilute both.

This is where digital genuinely changes the arithmetic. Printed save the dates need three to six weeks for design, proofing, printing and posting before they even reach a letterbox — for a short engagement, that lead time is a meaningful share of the remaining runway. A digital save the date goes from decision to delivered on the same day.

Who gets a save the date

Everyone on your A-list, and nobody else. Concretely, that means:

• Immediate family on both sides
• The wedding party and their partners
• Guests who will need to travel or take time off — which is most of the reason the save the date exists
• Anyone you would be genuinely upset not to have there

Two groups people forget: guests who are already coming to something else you are hosting (they still need the date in writing), and the officiant, photographer or other vendors who are also personal friends.

The rule with no exceptions

Anyone who receives a save the date must receive an invitation. There is no polite way out of this. A save the date is a promise, and withdrawing it because the guest list shrank, the budget tightened, or the venue capacity turned out lower than you thought is the single most damaging thing you can do to a friendship during planning.

The practical consequence is that your save the date list should be shorter than you think your guest list will be. Send to the people you are certain of. Hold every borderline name — the second-tier work colleagues, the plus-ones for relationships that may not last the year, the distant cousins — until the invitation stage, when you know your final numbers. If a save the date does not go out to someone who later gets an invitation, nothing is lost. The reverse is not recoverable.

The same logic applies to plus-ones and children. If the save the date is addressed to "Maria and Jordan", you have committed to inviting Jordan. If you are not sure yet, address it to Maria alone and settle the plus-one question on the invitation, where the wording can be precise.

What information belongs on a save the date

Five elements, and a strong bias towards leaving everything else out. A save the date that tries to be an invitation confuses guests about what they are meant to do with it.

1. Both names. First names are fine for a casual wedding; full names for a formal one.
2. The date, including the year. "15 August" is genuinely ambiguous eight months out. Always write the year.
3. The city or region. Not the venue address — just enough for guests to price travel. "Lake Como, Italy" or "near Galway" does the job.
4. The words "invitation to follow". This tells guests there is nothing to respond to yet, which is the most common point of confusion.
5. A link to your wedding page, if you have one. This is where the detail will appear as it firms up.

What to leave off:

• Registry or gift information. Never on a save the date. It reads as a request rather than an announcement. Gift details belong on the wedding website, and even then, quietly — the gift fund section of a Pressed Love invitation sits below the practical detail for exactly this reason.
• An RSVP. There is nothing to respond to. Asking for one this early produces answers that change.
• Dress code and schedule. Both will likely change. Save them for the invitation.
• Anything you are not certain of. If a detail could move, it should not be on a save the date.

Should you send a save the date if the venue isn't booked?

Yes — provided the date itself cannot move. This trips couples up constantly, and the confusion comes from treating the venue and the date as one decision when for guests they are two very different things.

Guests need the date to book leave and the city to price travel. Neither of those requires a venue name. Someone flying to Puglia does not book differently because the reception is at one masseria rather than another twenty minutes away.

Use this test:

• Date fixed, venue undecided within the same area: send. Write the region rather than the address.
• Date fixed, but the venue shortlist spans different cities or countries: wait. The location is load-bearing information for anyone travelling.
• Date could still shift: wait, always. Even a one-weekend move invalidates flights and leave requests that guests have already made.

A digital save the date softens this problem considerably. Because the page lives at a permanent link rather than in a letterbox, you can publish with the date and region now and add the venue, schedule and accommodation as they confirm — without reprinting or re-sending anything. Guests who revisit the link always see the current version. If you would like to see how that page is structured before committing, the template gallery shows every layout with real content in it.

Digital vs paper: does the send date change?

No. The window is set by how far ahead guests plan, not by how the message travels. Six to eight months for local, nine to twelve for destination, whether the save the date arrives by post or by phone.

What does change is everything either side of that window.

There is one sequencing advantage worth knowing about. With a digital save the date you can publish the page early with only the date and region filled in, share that link at the right moment, and let the page grow into the full invitation as details confirm. The same URL carries a couple from "save the date" to "here is everything you need" without a second send. That is also why the send flow matters: Pressed Love sends per guest over WhatsApp, SMS or email, so a save the date reaches the relatives who never check email and the friends who never open post.

For the wider comparison, including cost and the etiquette question, see digital vs paper wedding invitations and why couples switch.

What happens after the save the date

The save the date is the first of four dated milestones. Getting the first one right makes the next three easier, because every subsequent deadline is measured backwards from the wedding day.

1. Save the date — 6–8 months before (9–12 destination)
2. Full invitation — 6–8 weeks before (10–12 destination). This is the operational document: venue, schedule, dress code, accommodation, transport, RSVP. The complete breakdown is in when to send wedding invitations.
3. RSVP deadline — 3–4 weeks before (4–6 destination), giving you a buffer to chase non-responders before the caterer locks headcount at around 14 days out
4. Seating finalised — 7–10 days before, once the numbers stop moving. A seating chart that syncs to your RSVPs means late changes rearrange one table rather than the whole plan.

Five save-the-date mistakes worth avoiding

1. Sending before the date is certain. The one unrecoverable timing error. Wait for certainty, then send.
2. Sending to more people than you can invite. Your save the date list should be a subset of your guest list, never the other way around.
3. Leaving the year off. "Saturday 15 August" is ambiguous when the wedding is eight months away and there is another August in between.
4. Including registry details. It reframes an announcement as a request, and guests notice.
5. Waiting for a perfect design. Couples routinely lose two months to design decisions and end up sending a beautiful save the date too late to be useful. The date is the point. Send it.

In short

Six to eight months for a local wedding, nine to twelve for a destination wedding, ten to twelve for a holiday weekend, and immediately if your engagement is short. Only send once the date is locked. Only send to people you are certain of inviting. Keep it to names, date, region, and "invitation to follow".

When you are ready to build one, start with a save the date and let the same page become your full invitation later — design it at /create, preview it free, and publish when the date is confirmed. Pricing is one-time and starts at €49 with lifetime access, so the save the date and the invitation are the same purchase rather than two: see what each plan includes.

When to send save the dates — FAQs