Wedding stationery timeline - when to send out save the dates, wedding invitations and thank you cards

One of the most common questions we get asked is when to send save the dates, invitations and thank you cards. Here are the timelines we advise brides to follow:

Save the dates


* 6 months if the wedding is local but there are a lot of out-of-town guests attending or you want to alert local guests to save the date.


* 12 months if you are having a destination wedding where guests will need to book vacation time and budget money for the trip.

Wedding invitations

* 6-8 weeks prior to your wedding date. Regardless of if you are sending save the dates or not, we do not recommend that invitations be sent out earlier than eight weeks prior to the wedding date. People tend to forget to respond if the response date isn’t “urgent” and we find that brides have to do more phone calls in the end.

If you want to alert your guests earlier than the two months prior to the wedding, we suggest you send out save the dates.



Thank you cards

* No later than three months after the wedding. Traditionally, the bride and groom had up to a year to thank their guests for gifts, but this is no longer the norm. Wedding etiquette experts acknowledge that the proper timeline to thank your guests for their generous gift is now no later than three months after the gift is received. In fact, thank you notes should be written immediately upon receiving the gift. Of course, the weeks leading up to the wedding are extremely hectic, so when possible, send out the thank you cards as soon as you are able to.


Our services


Glass Slipper Designs is a Calgary-based wedding stationery company that specializes in unique, hand made designs. All of our designs are personally hand crafted using rubber stamps images, dry and heat embossing, embellishments, punched images, ribbon and more and are assembled by us. We work with you to create a design that is unique to your wedding day. To learn more and see examples of our work, visit our website at www.glassslipperdesigns.ca and stop by our blog at www.glassslipperdesignscalgary.blogspot.com.