A twelve month invitation timeline

Most invitation stress comes from doing the right things in the wrong order. The guest list is written after the venue is booked, the wording is agreed after the design is chosen, and the reply deadline is set after the venue has already asked for numbers.

Here is the order that works, counted backwards from the day.

Twelve months out#

• Venue and date confirmed. Nothing on this list can start before that
• The number the room holds, written down and agreed between you
• First pass at the guest list, done separately then compared. See who you have to invite
• Any parental contributions and their allocations agreed as numbers

Ten to twelve months#

• Save the date, if you are sending one. Any wedding involving travel, a bank holiday weekend or a destination needs one
• Collect email addresses while you are doing it. This is the single most useful hour of admin in the whole process

Whether you need one at all is covered in save the date or invitation.

Six to eight months#

• Guest list final. Not nearly final. Final
• The big decisions that change the wording: children, plus ones, dress code, gifts
• Choose the design. Choosing an invitation design works through it in five decisions

Destination weddings compress everything above and send the invitation itself in this window rather than the next one.

Four to five months#

• Write the invitation. Wedding invitation wording covers it line by line
• Decide the reply deadline by working backwards from the venue, then subtracting two weeks
• Check the addresses and the spelling of every name, twice

Three months#

• Send the invitations. Eight to twelve weeks is the standard window for a local day
• Send them all at once. A staggered send is how people find out from each other
• Tell anybody elderly or offline by phone, on the same day

Two months#

• Watch the replies. Roughly half arrive in the first week and then it goes quiet
• Release the second wave if you are running one, and only if there is still six weeks of notice

Six weeks#

• The reply deadline itself
• A single reminder to everybody who has not answered, sent a week before it. Not a nag, just a nudge

Four weeks#

• Chase the remaining silence individually, by message or phone. The guests who never reply covers doing it without irritation
• Dietary requirements collected and sent to the caterer. Asking guests about dietary requirements covers the question to ask

Two weeks#

• Final numbers to the venue
• Table plan, which needs the names of everybody in each party rather than a head count
• Order of the day sent out, or added to the invitation. See writing an order of the day

The week of#

• Travel and parking details resent, because nobody can find the original message
• Last minute changes handled directly rather than by broadcast

The two deadlines that are actually real#

Everything above is flexible except two dates: the day the invitations go out, and the day the venue needs final numbers. Every other item is scheduling around those two.

If you are late on the first, you lose guests. If you are late on the second, you pay for empty seats. The full task by task version is in the invitation checklist.