By Lauren and Haney

Congratulations on making it to the wedding invitation stage of your planning. It may sound silly to say “congratulations,” but if you’ve arrived at this stage you have already figure out your date/s, time/s, venue/s, financials, signed contract/s and your wedding theme is in order. All of these decisions help you to design the look and feel, as well as the invitation text. It’s a good feeling to plug this information into place.

There are two parts to your invitations: the text and the design. We advise focusing on the text first, because the formality of the text impacts the overall design execution. Our text tips are to do the following:

• Fact check the text order and language formality. This is especially important if you want to keep a formal tone. The wording and order of the invitation can give away a lot of information: families’ roles, religion, finances (i.e., who is hosting), parent/s relationship status, cultural traditions and the tone.
• Check online invitation wording sites to help you script the text and adapt to your situation. It’s useful to check these resources and to make sure to include all of the necessary information (date, time, location, venue, RSVP, dress code, names etc.) is included.

Part two is all about the design or the look and feel of the invitation. The tone of the invitation helps get your guests excited about the event. The tone is communicated through the typeface, paper, envelope, ink, color, icons/ images and any extras you choose to add (invitation tissue, ribbon, charms, etc.).  Your invitation should set a tone and reflect your overall theme.

Our last two cents…

• Theme Consistency: match the tone of the language with the color theme, envelopes, and paper;
• Price: To mitigate costs, consider making your own invitations, or go green and send out e-invites. Also, if your invitation is an unusual shape or size, make sure to check on extra postage fees.
• Language: Make sure all of the information and spelling is correct. If your invitation is in more than one language, makes sure the text translates correctly.
• Stationery: Consider the same invitation theme for other stationery and communication items (programs, thank you cards, website, etc.).

Voila! Your invitations will be ready in no time. Just go with your plan and plug in the information and theme. You’ll be glad to see your invitations addressed and in the mail! Off to the next thing…