Invitations for foreign wedding

Hi there. I think November might be a bit soon for a July wedding as most people wont have got their calendar's/diaries until Christmas time I imagine. Does your venue have a guide as to when they need to know?

I am getting married abroad in May 2016. I sent out my save the dates just before Christmas and am planning to send invites out as soon as the flights are released so that people can book up straight away at a (hopefully) lower cost than if they booked last minute.

My venue needs final numbers by 3 months prior to the wedding so I was planning to ask for replies a month before that. So for our wedding end of May I will ask for replies by mid-February 2016. Anyone who says they want to come later than 3 months before the wedding will incur a fee in addition to the price of the meal so it will be their choice if they want to pay or not (I suspect not which is why we have sent save the dates - so people know it is in Italy - and also why we want replies early). Realistically we will know definite yes's by the people who have booked their flights - our close F&F will all be booking straight away.

Budget wise - anyone you are inviting I would budget for. You may have everyone you invite say yes so you don't want to give yourself an unachievable guestlist and have to uninvited some people! I would say only invite people you can afford to or who you couldn't be without on your big day. We have invited 50 and had some tough decisions as to who we couldn't afford to invite. I suspect some people will say they can't come which will allow us to invite some of those we couldn't originally (this was another reason for the save the dates - some people will say no quite quickly if they can't do it in my opinion).

xx

So four months before is okay you think? I suppose that's long enough for us to know. We haven't bothered with save a dates, we already pretty much know who will come and who won't off of our invite list so sending them out is a formality really, although maybe we'll be surprised!

You're getting married in Italy as well aren't you? Where abouts did you choose? We did some searching and decided on ravello, photos look amazing!

We set up a website to give rough guide prices (used last years figures) then as soon as flights got released we passed on details but our invites don't go out til January so we have done ours a bit backwards but didn't expect flights to be released so early! So our guests have known lapland for 2 years by the time we get married, flight times a year in advance and the full invite will be 11 months before hand

I've been thinking about the wedding website idea! What one did you use? Are they pricey and time consuming?

Hi again. Yes we are getting married in Sorrento. Italy is just packed full of beautiful places and we found the perfect setting in a cloisters followed by a reception in a lemon garden restaurant. Perfect for what we wanted.

You aren't getting married in the same place as George Clooney are you? lol. Bet Ravello is really popular this year after that!

Have you picked out a theme for invites etc?

Oh I know exactly where you mean! I've seen it in brochures, lovely!!

is that where George Clooney got married?? I thought it was Venice! I'm going to have to google that now!

Yes I've chosen the theme, but I haven't found our supplier yet. I'm getting boarding pass style invites with a rip off RSVP and a ticket wallet like an airline flight pack, have you seen those? I've seen some that look like passports as we'll be decided against those in the end! I think we're just going to do postcard invites to the uk reception and ask people to RSVP online (I have set up a wedding website!!)

Have you booked your uk reception yet? I'm loathe to spend loads on ours, it's really a party for other people but OH is initiate my we have one for grandparents etc that can't make it out with us x

We went for vintage feel map print save the dates and are doing the same for our invites for Italy. Yes I have seen the ones you mean - they are really quirky I think. Very nice!

www.treeofhearts.co.uk/product.php2673/vintage-travel-destination-save-the-date-postcard

For the UK I am thinking of doing something completely different (I don't want to put people's noses out of joint for those who weren't invited to Italy!). This is what I have seen that I quite like...

www.pinterest.com/pin/3604991451477255417/

Hope those links both work!

I will decorate the hall for the UK bit in the same colour theme as Italy and the venue we are considering are actually throwing in a few decorations as well so I just need to try and tie it all together. We also don't want to spend a huge amount of money on the UK part as our band is expensive so we are trying to get a good deal on the venue and food. So far so good negotiation wise but we need to meet them face to face and get it all written down. That will be the next big thing we do.

What sort of colour theme are you going for?

x

Neither of your links worked! but it all sounds lovely!

im quite set on having a stationary theme throughout so I definitely want them all to be made by the same stationary company, I requested some more samples over the weekend!

I've gone for coral and white, this is pretty much going to be the feel:

http://blog.exclusivelyweddings.com/2014/02/15/the-10-all-time-most-popular-wedding-colors/

(there's a picture of a coral wedding, if it works!)

I struggled a bit with a colour scheme because if my bridesmaids. Summer wedding so didn't want dark colours, but couldn't go for the pale shades I wanted (I always imagined a nice lemon/yellow for my wedding) because they're all quite pale so would look washed out! So I decided coral was just bright enough but also a lovely summery shade. What have you gone for?

Its quite stressful leaving it all to a wedding planner in a way isn't it? Because it's like 'oh, I can't make any more decisions on that stuff until nearer the time!' But it's nice to not have to worry about dealing with foreign florists and musicians etc.

how many people do you think you're going to get out there? Everyone we talk to sounds really up for it but I think push come to shove and needing to book flights, I think we'll get less than have currently said yes. We think between 20-30 x

I've just seen your post about wedding dresses in the other forum and saw your comment about coral or yellow theme, how funny!

god you're organised, I haven't even looked at dresses yet! I still feel like it's too early! I'm more worried about bridesmaid dresses and the boys suits (which are also in light grey by the way) haha! Clearly we both have exceptional taste :p x

Haha - that is funny! I like coral as it is really nice and summery (hopefully it will be warm in Italy in May!!) but also yellow is something I like because of the link to the lemon gardens where we are getting married. I am going to have yellow roses in my bouquet as they are my favourite flower so might end up with a grey and yellow theme and skip out the coral.

I am trying to be open minded about colours at the moment because my bridesmaid (my sister) is quite pale in her complexion and I don't think yellow would do too much for her. I want her to feel comfortable and love her dress so she can have a big input into what we finally decide on. Coral would look much better on her in my opinion but if we do go for yellow I might get her a grey dress and have the flower girls in yellow. They will be 11, 7 and 2 by the time we get married. The 11 year old may have the same dress as my sister so that she doesn't feel like a baby with the little ones but I will let her choose.

That would tie it all together nicely but as I said above, at the moment I am open minded. My sister says I need to get my dress before we pick the other dresses in case I go for a colour (not a dark colour - blush or champagne type colours).

I am trying to focus my attention on the UK bit purely because I can't do the Italian bit just yet. My planner said November time is when we will be getting more into planning mode. Actually I am enjoying the planning so far as I don't have any pressure just yet - I can browse to my hearts content at the moment!

We have invited 50 but I think there will be some who don't come. My OH has a large family and we have a lot of friends who we are inviting. I think we will actually end up with between 30 and 40 in the end, which is fine by me as it will mean that we have more budget to spend on helping people with costs and buying a few more drinks out there.

What style of dresses have you looked at for your bridesmaids? We have only browsed online but we are going to a wedding show at Bluewater in Feb so will have a look round the shops there.

x

We used gettingmarried.co.uk we got the free version. It takes a ill while to get used to but it's really good as you can hide bits you don't want to use and create new pages

I think as soon as possible is best. To give people time to book time off work and arrange flights etc. Where l work then it's first come, first served for booking leave and l need to give a fair amount of notice. I am sure it's the same at other places