In This Article
Save-the-date. A pre-invitation sent six to eight months before a wedding to ask invited guests to hold the date. A save-the-date is a commitment from the host: the recipient is on the guest list. Sending one to a person who will not later receive an invitation is the canonical save-the-date error.
Where the term comes from
Save-the-dates are a relatively modern convention, rising in the 1990s alongside destination weddings and the broader trend of longer wedding planning timelines. Earlier etiquette assumed guests would not need significant lead time. The current six-to-eight-month window for local weddings and the eight-to-twelve-month window for destination weddings was stabilized in the wedding-industry press during the 2000s.
How it shows up in real life
A couple sends save-the-dates to 180 people. Three months later, they have to cut the guest list to 110 because their venue capped them lower than expected. They now have seventy people holding the date for an event they will not be invited to. There is no graceful recovery from this. Every person on the save-the-date list will receive a paper invitation.
Common misuses
The most common error is treating a save-the-date as a heads-up to a wider circle of friends than the eventual invitation list. The convention is opposite: a save-the-date is more restrictive than the invitation, not less, because once it is sent the recipient is on the list. The second error is sending save-the-dates too late (under four months out for a local wedding), which defeats the purpose.
