When to Send Wedding Invitations, and How to Pick Your RSVP Date

Ask a room of engaged couples when their RSVP deadline is and most will give you a date that felt about right. A month before the wedding, maybe six weeks. It is rarely a date they worked out.

That matters, because the RSVP date is not really about your guests. It is about the day your venue and caterer need final numbers. Get the order right and the invitation date falls out of it almost on its own.

Start from final numbers, not from the invitation

Every venue and caterer has a point where they need to know how many people are coming and what they are eating. It is usually somewhere between two and six weeks before the wedding, and it is written in your contract. If you have not found it yet, look now. Our guide to final numbers and what drop-outs cost explains what usually happens after that date.

Once you have it, work backwards:

1. Final numbers date. The one your venue or caterer gave you.
2. Two weeks of buffer. Time to chase the guests who have not replied, sort out the seating plan and collect any missing meal choices.
3. That gives your RSVP date. Put it on the invitation.
4. Six to eight weeks for guests to reply. Most people answer in the first fortnight or the last few days. Anything shorter feels rushed, anything much longer and the invitation gets put behind the clock.
5. That gives your send date.

So for a wedding where the caterer wants numbers four weeks out, the RSVP date sits around six weeks before, and the invitations go out roughly twelve to fourteen weeks before the day. That lines up with the usual advice of about three months, but now you know why, and you can move it if your contract says something different.

When to send them, by wedding date

Weddings this December to February. If you have not sent them yet, this is the moment. A January wedding with a four-week final numbers deadline needs replies by late November, which means invitations in the post before the end of October. December is a hard month to get replies in, so give guests a little longer, not less.

Spring 2027 weddings. Invitations go out in the new year, usually January or early February. Use the quiet weeks in November and December to finish the guest list and collect addresses. It is far easier than doing it in the week you meant to post them. Our guide to collecting guest addresses covers how.

Summer 2027 weddings. Save-the-dates first. If you are tucking them into Christmas cards this year, our guide to save-the-dates in Christmas cards has the details. The invitations themselves follow in March to May.

Destination weddings and anything over a bank holiday. Add time at both ends. Guests need longer to book flights, leave and childcare, so a save-the-date eight to twelve months ahead and invitations around four months ahead is sensible.

Who gets theirs first

There is no rule that every invitation has to go out on the same day. A few groups are worth sending to early:

• Guests travelling from abroad, or anyone who needs to book leave well ahead.
• Anyone with children if your wedding is adults only, so they have time to arrange a sitter.
• Close family, who will hear about it anyway and would rather hear it from you.

The one thing to avoid is a visible A list and B list, where some guests are invited weeks after others and can tell. If you are planning to invite more people as declines come in, keep the second batch small and send it soon after the first.

Make the RSVP date easy to keep

Guests miss RSVP dates for dull reasons. The card is under a magnet on the fridge, the stamp never got bought, or one partner thought the other had replied. A few things help:

• Write the date clearly, as a full date with the day of the week. "Kindly reply by Friday 4 December" is harder to misread than "RSVP by 4/12".
• Make replying take seconds. An online RSVP with a link or a QR code on the invitation means guests can answer the moment they open it, rather than the day they find a stamp.
• Ask everything once. Meal choice, dietary needs, whether they need a lift from the station. If it is on the RSVP, you do not have to chase it separately later.
• Know who has not replied. The average UK wedding in 2026 has 80 guests, according to the Bridebook UK Wedding Report 2026. Keeping track of 80 replies across texts, cards and conversations at the pub is where most of the stress comes from.

If people do miss the date, our guide to chasing RSVPs when guests do not reply has wording that is polite but clear.

Keep it all in one place

In Build The Day, guests reply on your wedding website. Their meal choice and dietary needs arrive with the RSVP, every reply lands in the same guest list, and you can see at a glance who is confirmed, who has declined and who is still pending. When your caterer asks for final numbers, you already have them.

Find your final numbers date this weekend, count back, and write the two dates in the diary. Everything else about the invitations is easier once those are fixed.