Is it possible to send wedding announcements BEFORE the wedding?

oh girl - Perse is right - don't send them out before hand that's just asking for a world of hard feelings aimed at you.

You could, but I would STRONGLY advise you against it.

There will be a very different thought process among the recipients.

Before the wedding: "Oh, how nice to inform me of the wedding I wasn't invited to."

After the wedding: "Oh, how nice they finally tied the knot. Good to know."

I would also strongly advise that your announcements focus on announcing the marriage (rather than the wedding). The marriage is what matters, not the one day event they weren't invited to.

What's this about a shower? Anyone attending the shower must also be invited to the wedding, so your concern is a non-concern. Anyone attending would know of the wedding anyways since they will get an invitation.

How on earth can you send an announcement of something that hasn't happened yet? Announcements are sent only AFTER the wedding. And as everyone has said, you don't invite anyone to a shower who isn't invited to the wedding.

I sent out announcements after I got married, but I eloped. No one was invited to my wedding. You don't send out announcements after having a small wedding. You just invite the people who are important enough to be invited. Anyone else will find out by word of mouth. And like others who have answered before me, you never invite anyone to a shower if they are not invited to the wedding.

Your maid of honor shouldn't be inviting anyone to the bridal shower who's not invited to the wedding. So the people invited to the bridal shower will already know you're getting married as they'll have invitations.

It's rude and incredibly greedy to invite people to the bridal shower who're not invited to the wedding. Or any pre-wedding event for that matter.

It's always better to send out wedding announcements after you marry. This will not avoid all hard feelings but will avoid 90% of them. You're asking to hurt people and be drowned by hundreds of "Are we invited?" or "Why weren't we invited?" questions by sending them out beforehand.

You can but... in this case I *strongly* advise not sending them before the ceremony especially to poeple you are not inviting. It really looks like a gift grab attempt.

Any guests invited to pre-wedding events (shower, engagement party, bachelor/bachelorette parties) must also be invited to the the wedding.

Why would someone want to come to pre-party events toting gifts for an event you're not inviting them to?

While your MOH is planning and sending out the invites, she/he should not be sending them to guests not invited to the shower. You should be supplying her/him with a list of people who will be invited to the wedding who you would like invited to the shower as well.

A shower is a gift giving event, if you invite people to the shower and not the wedding its going to come off as a greedy gift grab to those guests. They will easily get the impression they were good enough for a gift but not to be invited to the wedding.

There is however no problem with sending out announcements to family/friends who you weren't able to invite *after* the ceremony.

Edit: This is one of the parts of wedding planning where reality sets in.. you can't invite everyone you know. Mostly due to budget but some due to venue capacity. I have very large extended families, my side of the guest list alone was 190 and 95% of those were family only, with a large family there was many friends I wasn't able to invite (not necessarily budget, but venue space and well my husband had people to invite too).

First of all, guests who are invited to a bridal shower must be invited to the wedding. I have to ask though, why are you notifying people of your wedding if you aren't inviting them? In my book, that's like asking for gifts from people who were not important enough to see you get married.

I see the motive here is to send the announcement of your pending wedding so they are received prior to the wedding shower invitation. Oh lord, someone has zero manners here.

You see, unless a guest in on your wedding invitation list, THEY NEVER are on the shower invitation list as that is clearly a gift grabbing event, in that case. Unless you want to appear cheap and extremely greedy, do not send shower invites to anyone who is not invited to the wedding.

Your wedding announcements are sent AFTER you return from your honeymoon. Please exercise some decorum and some social grace before you embarrass the daylights out of yourself.

Hi. Although never been in your situation, have always thought about this. Yes, it'd be good to let the non invitees know so they don't hear about it by accident from an invitee and spend a few days with negative thoughts before you let them know yourself. Timing is a good idea and ideally these non invitees should get the 'announcement' before the invitees.

Maybe it's a good idea to get the wedding invites out to the invitees AT THE SAME TIME so they won't hear by accident from a non invitee and spend a few days with negative thoughts before you dish out the wedding invite.

Further these fortunate people might even start to think they've been an afterthought as the invitees, maybe to make up the numbers! Best to repel away these thoughts and do all activity at one time. You've got a lot of work for that day or two or three days. Consider taking a day off from work... it's probably worth it... Good luck

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