A save-the-date does one job. It tells a household to hold a date, in a city, for your wedding. It is not a small invitation, and it is not a place to explain the whole weekend.
ShaadiPrints lists these cards as sent six to twelve months before the wedding. You can see the postcard, magnet, and foil options in the save-the-date catalog. How that mailing sits next to proofs and invitation print time is in the stationery timeline.
Send it only if an invitation will follow
Every household on the save-the-date list is a household on the invitation list. If you are unsure about a coworker or a distant cousin, leave them off. It is kinder to add someone later, with an invitation, than to send a save-the-date and then nothing.
Parents sometimes want a wider early list than the couple does. Decide the list before you print. The count is by household, which is the same method as how many invitations to order.
What to print
Photo coming soon
Use the couple's names, the date or the weekend, and the city and state. A wedding website can go on the card if it already has the date and the city. It should not be the only place the date appears. Guests lose links. They keep a card on the fridge, which is why a magnet is one of the formats in the catalog.
For a single ceremony, the line can be as small as:
Priya Shah and Arjun Mehta
June 12, 2027
Edison, New Jersey
For a weekend with several events, name the span and the place, not every function:
Simran Kaur and Harpreet Singh
June 18 to 20, 2027
Fremont, California
Guests who need flights can hold the weekend. The mehndi, Anand Karaj, and reception each get their own card later, for the people invited to that event. Those cards are described in invitations for mehndi, sangeet, and the reception.
What to leave off
The venue street address can wait for the invitation, unless the website is already sending people to book a hotel and you want the city to be unmistakable.
Leave the registry off the save-the-date. Leave dress codes, a full puja schedule, and a request for gifts off it too. Those details belong with the invitation or on an insert, when the guest list for each event is settled. Wording for the invitation itself is in Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, and fusion wording.
Do not print "formal invitation to follow" as decoration and then change your mind about half the list. If you print that line, mean it.
Guests traveling to the United States
If a large part of one family is flying in, send the save-the-date toward the early end of the six-to-twelve-month range so people can request time away and look at fares. The card still only needs the weekend and the city. Passport and visa steps are not something a stationery card should invent rules about. Point family abroad to the couple, not to a paragraph of legal advice on a postcard.
If some cards are mailed outside the US, put the country on its own line. Addressing is covered in how to address wedding envelopes.
When something changes
If the date or the city changes, mail or message a correction to the same households. Keep it as short as the original card: the names, the new date, the city. You do not need a second designed suite unless you want one. The invitation catalog is for the full card, which still follows later, six to eight weeks before the wedding on the ceremony products.
If you are no longer inviting someone who received a save-the-date, tell them directly. Do not hope they forget.