The guest list is sorted and you’re ready to start inviting – boom! Much like branding is to a business, stationery sets the tone for your wedding and helps guests know what to expect from your special day. It’s the first look into your wedding style and colour palette and ensures that guests have important information at their fingertips.
When you’re designing your wedding invitations, it’s important to remember that the type of ink and printing style you use can be an effective part of the artistry of your invites. Here are some of the most common types of printing you’ll run into when browsing your stationery options.
Most stationery prices are worked out based on two factors:
– The complexity of the design – The less complex and time consuming the design, the lower the price. – Also think about the type of illustrations you want, if any.
– The sizes, paper, printing techniques and quantities you choose -This will affect the production price of stationery.
Stationery does not need to be complicated to be beautiful. Even though most brides love invitations with special finishes like letterpress printing, foiling or special folds, digital printing is a much more cost effective alternative and it can give you more options in terms of appearance.
The golden rule with stationery printing is that size and quantity will affect the price. You can opt to go for smaller sizes to save on paper costs or send half of your invitations digitally.
0ther types of stationery couples often have at their wedding:
Programs: The program usually supplies a timeline for the day and the names of the people involved, like the names of the parents, bridal party, the MC, band/musicians and people who will be doing speeches.
Seating plan: You can opt to create small cards with the names of all guests or do a big poster with your table layout.
Name cards: Placed on the tables, these cards allocate a seat to each guest.
Menus: You can opt to have one menu per table or create bigger name cards and place the menu on the back.
Table numbers: Table numbers printed or do them as special cut outs from wood or Perspex to compliment the look of your wedding. All available from Epro Products, Laser Cut Décor
Checklist & important information to include on a wedding invitation:
Below are some popular examples of wording. It is traditional for the name of the bride/bride’s parents to be first followed by the groom/groom’s parents.
– Kelly and Ross joyfully request the pleasure of your company at their wedding day.
– Together with their parents, Kelly and Ross invite you to share in the joy of their wedding day.
– Sarah and James Smith, and Martha and Matt Jones, invite you to witness and celebrate the wedding of their children, Kelly and Ross.
– Sarah and James Smith invite you to the wedding of their daughter Kelly to Ross, son of Martha and Matt Jones.
Information to follow this introduction includes:
1. The wedding date (day, month, year)
2. The venue and GPS coordinates (maps are slowly going out of fashion as it’s so easy to simply punch a GPS coordinate into a phone)
3. Time that the wedding guests need to arrive and the time that the ceremony will begin
4. The RSVP date and contact information: Let everyone know if you’ll want to hear from them via email or website, phone, or a response card. Different generations have different preferences here (those Millennials and their anti-phone ways!), so make sure it’s really clear with a deadline.
5. Wedding website – If you have a wedding website we recommend putting the website address somewhere on your invitation cards. It can be hard to get older friends and family to remember this even exist, so list it whenever you can. This is a great place to put a lot of helpful information while not being constricted to a small paper invite. You may want to include a line like:
Have a look at our wedding website (www.yoursite.com) for directions, accommodations, registry information, and more!
Additional details you can move to your wedding website
Directions
Rules regarding partners (by invitation only)
Local Bonus Information! This isn’t required, but is especially helpful if you’re having a wedding weekend. List some local faves and landmarks for downtime and/or information about getting around. Big city or destination weddings especially can benefit from a little help ahead of time.
Other event and party information (welcome parties, brunches,rehearsals etc.)
If you’re having a pre-dinner, welcome party, morning -of yoga session or day-after brunch, this is where you can expound about what fun it will all be and all relevant information.
Wedding Gift or Registry information
This is one of those etiquette questions that is fairly safe to stop worrying about. No one will be offended if you include registry information on your invite or wedding website. In fact, some guests get upset when they can’t find it! Most guests expect, and want to give a wedding gift to the happy couple, this information simply makes it easier for them to do so.
For more information on wedding invitations have a look at Wedding Invites, traditional or Digital and Who Gets an Invite to your Wedding.
Contact us for all your wedding needs, email us at info@weddinggateway.co.za
If we or one of our amazing suppliers can’t assist we will refer you to someone who can.
The Wedding Gateway
– XOXO –
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