When to Send Save the Dates for a Wedding in Japan
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Send them ten to twelve months before the wedding. If most of your guests are flying in from another country, twelve. That is the short answer, and if you only read one line, read that one.
The reason is worth understanding, though, because it changes several other decisions you are about to make.
Why the six-month rule breaks
The familiar advice — save the dates at six months, invitations at eight weeks — was written for a wedding your guests can drive to. It assumes the only thing they need to do is keep a Saturday free.
A guest flying to Japan has to do four things instead, and three of them have their own deadlines:
- Book annual leave. Not one day. Five, once you count the flights and the recovery. In most workplaces that has to be requested well ahead, and in some it is decided for the whole year in January.
- Check a passport. Renewals take weeks, and longer in the months before summer.
- Save for the trip. Flights, hotel, food and a gift. For many guests this is the most expensive weekend of their year, and they need to see it coming.
- Buy a fare before it climbs. Long-haul prices rise as departure approaches. The guest who books at eleven months and the guest who books at four months are not paying the same amount for the same seat.
Every one of those runs faster than six months. Send late and you are not being relaxed — you are quietly deciding, on their behalf, that some of your guests cannot come.
The timeline, worked backwards
| 12 months before | Venue and date confirmed. Save the dates sent to overseas guests. |
| 10 months | Save the dates sent to everyone else. Wedding website live, even if half of it still says "more soon". |
| 8 months | Hotel block confirmed and the booking deadline announced. |
| 6 months | Nudge anyone who has not booked a flight. This is the last comfortable moment. |
| 4 months | Formal invitations. RSVP deadline set for two months out, not one. |
| 2 months | RSVPs close. Final numbers to the venue. |
| 2 weeks | Travel details resent. Everyone has lost the first email. |
The dates in Japan that change the price
Some weeks in Japan are busier and dearer than others, and if your wedding falls near one, your guests need even more warning. Flights fill and hotel rates in Kyoto and Tokyo can double.
- Late March to early April — cherry blossom season. The most beautiful time to marry here, and the hardest to book.
- Late April to early May — Golden Week, a run of national holidays when the whole country travels at once.
- Mid-August — Obon, when families return to their home towns. Domestic transport is at its fullest.
- Mid to late November — autumn foliage, particularly around Kyoto. Beautiful, and busy.
If your wedding sits in one of these windows, send save the dates at twelve months and say plainly on the card that flights and hotels should be booked early. Guests will thank you later, usually while telling you what they paid.
What belongs on a save the date
A save the date has one job: to get a date into a calendar and a rough cost into someone's head. It is not the invitation, and it should not try to be.
Include:
- Your names.
- The date, written in full.
- The city and country — Kyoto, Japan — so the scale of the trip is immediately obvious.
- The words formal invitation to follow.
- The link to your wedding website, even if the website is still half-finished.
Leave out:
- The ceremony time. It will change.
- The venue's full address. It belongs on the invitation.
- Gift or registry information. Too early, and it reads badly.
- An RSVP request. You are not asking a question yet.
How to word it
Three lines and a link. That is the whole card. Here are three versions that work.
Plain and warm
Emma & Daniel are getting married in Kyoto, Japan.
Saturday, 14 November 2027.
Please save the date — invitation to follow.
When you need people to book early
Emma & Daniel
Kyoto, Japan — Saturday, 14 November 2027.
We would love you there. Flights and rooms fill early in November, so we are telling you now.
Full details and travel notes at emmaanddaniel.com
When you already know some people cannot come
Emma & Daniel are marrying in Kyoto on Saturday, 14 November 2027.
We know it is a long way. There is no obligation at all — but if you would like to be there, this is the date to hold.
Invitation and travel details to follow.
The third one is worth considering more often than couples think. Naming the difficulty out loud removes the awkwardness for the guest who cannot make it, and it makes the yes from everyone else feel freely given.
Digital or paper
For guests crossing an ocean, digital wins — not because it is cheaper, but because it arrives.
International post is slow and occasionally does not turn up at all. A digital save the date lands the day you send it, can be forwarded to a partner who was not on your list, and carries a live link to your website. It also survives being lost, because it lives in a phone rather than on a fridge.
If paper matters to you, do both: send the digital one at twelve months so the date is safe, and post the printed one whenever it is ready, as a keepsake rather than a notification.
What if you are already late?
If the wedding is nine months away and nothing has gone out, send today. Send it plainer than you wanted to. A save the date with the wrong font that arrives in time is worth more than a perfect one that arrives after your closest friend has booked a holiday.
Then follow it within a fortnight with the website, so anyone who needs to move quickly can.
Every rockStudio save the date template is built for this — the date, the place and the link, and nothing else competing for attention. Each one is editable in Canva, so you can have it out the same evening you decide on the date. When you are ready to build the page it points to, here is what to put on a wedding website for guests flying to Japan.