Invitations

As you probably know by now, I take great pride in my writing ability. As such, I took great care in designing and drafting our wedding invitations. The wedding invitation is probably one of the only documents created and prepared by you as a couple that the most people you both know will ever see.

The quality of the invitation absolutely sets the tone for your wedding day. If the wording on an invite is formal, guests will probably expect a pretty classy event. Sometimes, I find the use of an overly formal tone can come off as slightly pretentious. On the other hand, you don't want to be too informal in your language and tone. Everyone says your wedding day is one of the most important and happiest days of your life, so you definitely want to convey that through your word choice. There are many wedding invitation wording examples available online. (Google was certainly my best friend for this particular project!)

I can't stress this point enough - have multiple people proofread your invitation. Whether drafted yourself or professionally, there is always a potential for human error. Check spelling, grammar, dates, and times. Double and triple check, and then check it over once more!

These days, it is so easy to create your own invitations! For the DIY lovers, you can definitely find some great products to make your own by hand. With Pinterest, it is so easy to find inspiration and tips. There are also numerous websites where you can design your own, and easily match RSVP cards and envelopes.

I really enjoyed designing and ordering our invites through Vistaprint, and would recommend them to anyone! It was so easy to navigate the website and customize the designs, text, and colours. Additionally, I was able to easily order RSVP cards, envelopes, return envelopes, and stickers to match our invitation design.

Typically, a wedding invitation is a series of several cards providing information on event details, accommodation, food choices, and gift preferences. When it comes to providing information, consider including anything that the guest would absolutely need to know. For example, if you are requesting monetary gifts, you really don't have to say so. Not only do I think this is tacky, but most people assume that if the couple is not registered anywhere, they would prefer a cash gift. This is definitely information that can be eliminated from your invitation package.

Furthermore, including too much information on multiple cards/papers can be quite overwhelming for your guests. It is quite likely that some people will lose certain components of the invitation between the time you send them and the time of the big day. It is a good idea to condense this information as much as possible.

Being the economical bride that I am, I decided to get everything printed double sided. That way, there were only two card components to our invitation package. On the back of the actual invitation we detailed our registry information, and on the back of the RSVP card we listed the menu options. We received great feedback from our guests on the simple layout of our invitations.

Many couples are choosing to send out evites instead of a hard copy. I would highly encourage this. Although I wouldn't trade our invitations, I do wish we had decided to send them via email instead. Not only is this a great green choice, it is also cost effective and extremely efficient. With paying for both the invitation packages themselves and the postage to mail them, our invitations quickly became a larger expense than we had anticipated. Also, we had several of our invitations go missing in the mail system, which was extremely frustrating.

To streamline the whole RSVP process, having guests respond via email is definitely the best route. Although you will still have to follow up with those who have not responded, you won't be relying on them to do anything other than click through a few prompts. So far, following up on RSVPs has been the most agonizing and annoying part of planning our wedding. We definitely wish we had looked into online invitation options! ~♡~