Save the date V invitations - do I need both?

Wow - you have done a lot already, well done!

Tbh, I would say that you should still send out STD's - sometime in August - and then maybe your invites in Feb?

Things can change a lot in a year, so people may RSVP now, but then change their minds - or something else comes up - by the time the wedding comes around.

By giving them a STD they can outline the date on their calendar and know they shouldn't book a holiday on that date.

I think it'll save you getting a lot of drop out RSVP's.

We are doing both. We get married July 2018 and sending save the dates out around about Xmas time then invites out the beginning of 2018. We are sending save the dates out early due to having a July wedding and it means people hopefully can work around our date xx

It's personal preference really. If you're sending your invitations out early then I suppose you wouldn't need to send them as there would probably only be a month or two between the two being sent out.

We're getting married September 2017 abroad so are sending save the dates in September and then invites January as we won't know how the day is going until late in the year.

You could send your save the dates out this year with the location detailed (for anyone who would need to travel) and then invitations Jan-Apr time next year?

Also as pp said, you have done so much already, I feel I am lacking when it comes to organisation!

I think if you are sending out your invites early enough then you don't need save the dates unless you particularly want to send them

Our wedding is October 2016 during half term so again we were aware people would be planning holidays and we are also getting married about 2.5 hours away from where most of our friends & family live so we knew everyone would need time to book accommodation as we have over 100 people coming. We sent out save the dates in December 2015 and invites went out end of Jan/beginning of Feb 2016

We just used word of mouth/email/text to let our guests know our date-we did that once we booked it. I don't think we told EVERYONE on the list, but certainly most of them-we had guests travelling a long way. We did only have 60 people though, so I suppose it was easy to do that. It was easier (& cheaper ) than actual save the dates)

Invites got sent end of Feb for an early July wedding.

Bearing in mind the holiday thing I would definitely say you need to let people know when it is going to be in advance and this is exactly what a STD is for. If you want to save on costs, just send a text or set up a FB group to let people know they will be invited and you'd love for them to save your date. You could even set up a wedding site of some sort and direct everyone to it through messages of whatever sort that person will pay attention to?

I think the general experience is that if you send the invitations too early then you end up fussing and wondering why people aren't replying and it's simply just because all people are useless busy and forget. This then leads to lots of chasing because people have forgotten or have put it off for so long they can't find the RSVP... The other issue that we found was that people didn't always get their STDs and/or invitations, which was sad... so I think digital STDs are actually the way forward, personally!

Also, I did a lot of my planning at work via e-mail, so don't worry too much about lack of wedding productivity (unless your job is more active, in which case I'm sure it'll all still be ok, you sound pretty much done already! )