A Comprehensive Guide to Wedding Invitations
Planning a wedding takes massive amounts of time and effort. From choosing your venue to booking a caterer, the choices headed your way can easily get overwhelming. To make your journey to the wedding of your dreams go a little more smoothly, we’ve created a guide covering everything you need to know about wedding invitations.
Purchasing Wedding Invitations
When it comes to picking out your wedding invitations, budget plays a large role. Save-the-date cards, RSVP cards, additional envelopes, and special calligraphy services will all raise the price of your stationery package. Here are some basic steps you’ll go through when purchasing your invites.
Choose Your Favorite Design
Take some time to envision the type of design you want before you go looking for it. Are you interested in bold colors or a more subdued palette? Should the focus be on dazzling illustrations or intricate calligraphy? Having a clear idea of what you want will allow you to focus when faced with the wide variety of options the internet has to offer. If you already have a theme in mind for your wedding, choose a design that will incorporate it into your invitations.
Compose a Message
Once you’ve found a design online or in a store, it’s time to iron out the message that will be printed on your invites. Typically, the invite itself will be short and to the point, with a brief message announcing the wedding, the names of the couple, and the time and location.
Include an RSVP Card and Other Add-ons
In addition to the actual invitation, you need a way to collect all those RSVPs and figure out how many people are planning on attending your wedding. Traditionally, wedding invitations will also include an RSVP card and a self-addressed envelope, so that guests can easily check off their response and mail it back to you. For a more cost-effective method of counting your attendees, consider putting an online RSVP on a wedding website and including that information in the invite.
Decide whether you want to add any additional stationery pieces into your invitations. That might include a meal card, on which guests indicate the food they would like at your reception, or a page that fleshes out an itinerary. Depending on your budget and vision for your wedding, you may choose to host all of this additional information on your wedding website.
Proofread
Before you seal your invitations, reread your message to ensure that everything is spelled correctly. Next, have your future spouse look it over. Then, have a third person take a look. This may seem like overkill, but the last thing you want is to send out dozens of invitations only to find a typo after you’ve sent the last one!
Addressing a Wedding Invitation
If you don’t have the budget to hire a calligrapher or someone to address and send your invitations for you, you’ll be doing things the old-fashioned way. But that doesn’t mean you have to wear out your hands by writing your return address over and over! Consider investing in some return address labels for wedding invitations, which will speed up the process of addressing all those envelopes immensely. Not only will you save time, you’ll also be able to choose a design like a brilliant gold foil or refined clear address label to further tie the look of the envelope in with the design of your invitation.
When it comes to addressing the outside of the envelope and the inside of your invitations, double-check the spelling of the recipients’ names—it won’t do to misspell anyone’s surname! Be aware of special circumstances that pop up when addressing invites, such as two married doctors, which can get a little tricky grammatically.
Sending Your Invites
The key to sending wedding invitations is to get them in the mail early enough that invited guests will have time to clear their schedules and get you their RSVP, but not so early that those guests will forget about your event over the coming months. Eight to 10 weeks out is a great range to aim for, but you should allow even more time if your guests will need to make travel plans to get to your destination wedding.
Whether you include it on the RSVP card in the physical invitation or on your wedding website on the electronic RSVP, be sure to set a deadline. Not only will this ensure your guests put the date on their calendars, but the deadline will save you a lot of stress as your special day gets closer. Instead of agonizing over when to reach out to people who have yet to let you know they’re coming, you’ll have a good idea of your guest list several weeks before your wedding.
Get Your Wedding Details Right with Current Labels
At Current Labels, we’re all about the little details, and we want to help you make your wedding sparkle. Make the process of sending out invitations less of a chore with our customized stationery and return address labels. We’re so excited to play a part in making your special day one to remember!
