The Appearance of Wedding Invitations

Your invitations set the tone for your occasion. Does it scream “I can’t miss this party it sounds fabulous” or does it say “maybe we will think about it”.

For starters, your invitation should match the theme or style of your event. Wedding invitations should get mailed 8 weeks prior to the event. The sooner you notify your guest the better. This is when “Save the dates” come in. Save the date cards is a necessity for weddings, especially the ones taking place on a holiday weekend, and for out of state travel so vacations are not scheduled the same time as your event. Save the dates don’t have to match your theme they can be informal. Check out the save the date cards at www.magnetstreet.com they have a fun variety.

A key part of your wedding invitation is the appearance of the envelope. Believe it or not it can say a lot of the wedding and the bride itself. Did you take your time? Did you rush to get it over with? Do you care? Did you follow the etiquette? Paying attention to this small detail can make a significant difference on how the invitation will be received by your guest. Addressing envelopes are often not paid much attention to because most couples think guest will not pay attention to them. This could be true but there are a significant few that do care. Below is a list of important factors to consider.

1) Once your invitations have been stuffed, bring one to the post office and have them weigh it. By doing this you won’t be guessing how much each stamp will cost and run the chance of having all the invitations returned back to you.

2) After you know how much each stamp will cost, go to www.zazzle.com to order some cool stamps with your names or your initials. Your guest will like the personal touch.




3) Here’s the million dollar question. “Can I use labels for my wedding invitations”? The answer is “NO” that’s not to say couples don’t use clear labels. They do. However, the label, in my opinion cheapens the look of something that should stand out as a very special and personal piece of mail. The key is to make your invitation stand out from the all the junk mail. This doesn’t mean you have to hire a calligrapher if it’s not in your budget. You have 2 choices: A) hand write them or have someone with nice handwriting do them for you. B) you can find a fancy font and print the address right on the envelope and this will almost look like you hired a calligrapher and it will show the guest you took your time and didn't rushed through the process to get them done and over with.

4) Last step, make sure you “hand cancel” your invitations. Last thing you want is your guest to receive a dirty invitation with black ink all over it after all the hard work you did. Hand Canceling simply means that the post office will not run your invitations through a machine they will stamp them manually instead. By doing this your invitations will look nicer and you won't risk having them destroyed by the machine. Beware, most post office don’t like to do this because it’s a lot of work for them, so make sure you shop around for post offices and mail a test one to your parents house first.

Remember wedding invitations are good news and tokens of appreciation by the couple to their friends and families. Make every wedding invitation count for that reason.

Chao!