Knowing when to order and send your wedding invitations and other stationery can be a bit tricky. You want to allow your guests enough time to be able to make travel plans and avoid committing to other engagements, but also not too early that they can't be sure whether or not they will be able to attend.

Here's our guide to planning out a timeline for when to start looking for a design, when to place an order and when to send out your stationery.

Save the Dates

If you think that your guests need to make significant travel plans or other arrangements to be able to attend your wedding, Save the Dates are a great way to give them that little extra time to do so.

They allow you to let your guests start planning, but not have them make any commitment to attend if it may not be a simple decision. Examples may be if they are traveling from interstate or abroad, or if the wedding is held over popular holiday periods where they may be making other holiday or travel plans.

Given enough notice, you may be surprised with the distance that family and friends will come from to be able to attend, especially if they are able to tie it in with other travel or activities.

When to Order and Send

We recommend sending Save the Dates from 8 to up to 14 months prior to your wedding. You should also allow another 3 weeks for us to print and deliver your Save the dates and envelopes, and another 2 to 3 weeks to create and proof your design.

Invitations

These are the pieces that fill your guests in with all the information they need for attending your wedding day. They include the invitations themselves and any additional pieces such as response cards, gift cards, information cards, and maps.

When deciding when to send these pieces, earlier is not necessarily always better. There's a balance to be struck between sending them too early and having some guests cancel due to unforeseen reasons, and sending them too close to your wedding day, and having some guests not able to attend due to prior commitments.

When to Order and Send

Invitations are generally sent out four to eight weeks before your wedding. Allowing time for design and printing of your pieces you will need to place your order 4 to 6 months prior to your wedding or earlier. However, we recommend ordering your invitations as soon as all of your information (time, date, locations, etc.) is finalised thus allowing as much time as possible for the process.

Wedding Day Pieces

Pieces that you may be using on the day include programs and program covers used at the ceremony to menus and tags for bomboniere that are used at your wedding reception.

When to Order

Although they are not needed at the same time as your invitations, many of our clients decide to order them at the same time, especially if the wording and details are already planned.

If it's not possible to order them at the same time, you should be looking to place your order 2-3 months prior to you wedding date. This will allow us enough time to finalise your design, print and deliver your pieces and avoid a last minute rush to get everything finalised.

Thank You Cards

After all the festivities have subsided and you have settled into your new life, a thank you card is a way to send a token of your appreciation to your guests for sharing in your celebration. Some of our clients choose to include a handwritten or printed personal message, and you can see this reflected in many of our collection designs.

When to Order and Send

These are generally sent no later than 6 to 8 weeks after the wedding date, but usually the earlier you send them the better. For this reason, we usually suggest ordering them at the same time as your other wedding stationery. But if this isn't practical or possible, then you should be looking to order them within the first few weeks following your wedding day.

Ordering Your Wedding Stationery

Most of our clients decide to order their stationery all at the same time, with the exception of Save the Dates, which are usually ordered earlier. As with anything, ordering earlier gives you more time to refine your design and generally reduces stress. See our Turnarounds page for more information on specific design, proofing and printing turnarounds.

We appreciate the amount of work and planning that goes into a wedding, invitations and stationery being only one of these. If you have any questions regarding organising your stationery, feel free to contact us!