Your wedding invitation is the front line of your wedding day – it is the first contact you have with your invitees and your first impression of your wedding. This is the prime reason why you should select a wedding invitation that reflects you both as a couple, and reflects the theme, tone and style of your wedding. Often, the main question engaged couples ask is what to include in their wedding invitation packages. Generally speaking, you should send your wedding invitations six to eight weeks in advance of the wedding date.
As for what to include in your wedding invitation, let’s look at a detailed list and explanation of what you should include in an invitation package and some of the extras that you can choose to include as well.
The staples for a wedding invitation include:
The Invitation Card
The invitation itself is the explanation of who, what, when, where and why you are sending an invitation. It should contain all of the pertinent information so that the invitee knows the answers to all these questions.
There are many different types of wedding invitation cards to send – folded, double sided, single sided, booklets and much more. You can select the invitation based on how much information you want to put on the card as well as the design you like the most. You can have them printed with calligraphy writing, embossment, engraving, thermography, letterpress color and more. Many times, the invitation card will be in its own envelope inside the mailing envelope.
The Invitation Envelope
The invitation’s envelope is a non-gummed envelope that contains the invitation itself. It often is chosen to match the invitation in color and style. Put the invitation card inside the invite envelope and place inside the wedding invitation package envelope that you will mail.
The Wedding Invitation Package Envelope
The wedding invite package envelope is a gummed and sealable envelope that you will use for mailing. On this, you will write the recipient’s mailing address to be delivered by postal mail. The mailing envelope can match the rest of your package in color and style, or can be a plainer envelope.
Response Card
The response card is a staple of wedding invitation packages. This ensures that the recipient will respond to you if they are planning to attend your wedding. You can use a variety of formats for your response card, but you should include a space for their name and number of guests attending. These responses are used to gather totals of attendees for your wedding which will help the caterer and planning of the wedding as a whole.
You should include a pre-addressed and pre-stamped envelope with the response card so that returning your invitation is easy for your invitee. You should request on the response card that they respond at least two weeks before the date of the wedding. This is to help you have enough time to finish the final planning stages of your wedding day.
Optional Pieces to Include in Your Wedding Invitation Package
There are an unlimited number of options to include in your wedding invitation package, but remember to keep it simple. Include the information that is helpful and the following pieces may be of interest to you to include, based on the location, style and place of your wedding.
Reception Card
A reception card lists the addresses and times of post-wedding events. A reception card is especially important to send if you are having your reception or other events at a different location from the wedding itself. Be sure to include this information and the addresses of the locations on the reception card.
Map and Direction Cards
If you are unsure of whether or not out of town guests will be able to find the locations of your wedding day events, be sure to include a card with a map and directions of how to find the locations of the events. Be sure to include each event’s directions and don’t assume that just because someone lives in the same city you do that they will know how to get to a specific place.
Accommodation Information
Accommodation information cards are a good idea if you’re hosting your wedding at a vacation destination or if you have many out of town guests. Be sure to include airfare, transportation and accommodation arrangements in the information for your prospective guests.
Archive for the ‘Wedding invitations’ Category
Wedding Invitation Packages: What to Include
Saturday, October 9th, 2010Examples of Themed Wedding Invitations
Friday, October 1st, 2010Having a themed wedding provides for a unique wedding experience, one that you, your friends and family are sure to never forget. A themed wedding can also offer you a plethora of choices for your decisions, starting with themed wedding invitations. Let’s look at a few examples of themed wedding invitations.
Classic/Traditional Wedding
A classic / traditional wedding can also be viewed as a themed wedding! If you are thinking about going with an older style, you should choose invitations that match that idea. Beautifully scripted fonts on foil paper or cursive fonts on plain white paper stock with a textured border are both good examples of a classically themed wedding. You may also choose from a pink or purple so you can offset the more traditional white.
Everything is blooming roses
Flowers are a quintessential part of any wedding, and many couples choose roses as their wedding flower. Roses, along with calla lilies and daisies are the three most popular flower choices for weddings today. This common choice doesn’t have to be ordinary by any means. You may want to also think about taking your lilies, roses and daisies and putting them on your wedding invitations. Yes, this may be a common theme, but by choosing these beautiful wedding invitations, embossed, embellished or embedded in a beautiful color of card stock paper, they can provide you with the opening to a beauty inspired wedding.
Autumn weddings
Having an autumn wedding offers plenty of choices for themed wedding invitations. With beautiful and rich colors exploding in the fall, you can choose some of these impressive tones to accent your invitations. Colors of gold, dark red, browns and olive greens can offset each other beautifully. Couple these bold colors with seasonal aspects like leaves, trees, pine cones and the great outdoors and you have a beautiful wedding invitation.
Winter weddings
Winter wedding themes offer the unique clean aspect of crisp white coupled with icy blues. Snow, ice and frost may also be beautiful accents to your winter themed wedding invitations.
Your wedding destination
If you are hosting your wedding at a vacation destination, do not be afraid to use the destination as a theme for your invitations. If you are travelling somewhere warm and sunny for your wedding, use sandy beaches, sunshine and oceanic scenes to accent your invitations. Put together invites that provide a sneak peek at the rolling ocean encroaching on a sandy beach with the palm trees blowing in the warm breeze. Invite your guests to have some fun in the sun while celebrating your special day.
Western themes
Are you a western couple? Cowboy and cowgirl meet and ride off in the dusty sunset on a pair of magnificent horses? The couple is fully equipped with cowboy boots and hats. Use this theme in your wedding invitations to invite your friends to a western inspired wedding. Accents such as cowboy boots, cowboy and cowgirl silhouettes, spurs, cowboy hats and more can provide an interesting embellishment for your wedding invitation theme. Horses, corrals and ropes can also be used to accent your western theme.
Love is in the air
Of course, many couples are going to choose love as the underlying theme of their wedding. It makes perfect sense; their love for each other is what makes this wedding possible. Love as a theme does not have to be boring. The first thing most people think of when they think “love” is hearts. Heart themed wedding invitations can range from intricate scripted hearts to chunky pink hearts and everything in between. Hearts with flower petals embossed on a high quality paper stock will give you an interesting love-inspired themed wedding invitation.
Another choice for love-inspired invitations is interlocked rings. While this is common, it is no more ordinary than you are. Use interlocking rings as an accent in a deep shade of purple or blue to offset your other colors. This is where you can really get creative.
Your wedding should be your fairy tale romance, so choose something interesting like horse drawn carriages or a surprising castle for the background of your invitations.
Clip art of couples and wedding parties is also a standard in the wedding invitation industry. However, you can mix this up and make it unique to your own wedding by using your own silhouettes as the background for your invitation.
Make your invitation your own
Regardless of the theme of your wedding, you can create a unique, individual wedding invitation that couples the theme of your wedding with your own personal style. Even if the overall theme of your wedding is love or romance, take your own personal ideas of what this means to you and find an invitation that speaks from the heart. Hearts, flowers, rings, silhouettes and more can all be used to embellish your day.
Choose textures and layers
Even ‘standard’ wedding invitations can be embellished and really ‘pop’ when you add some texture to the paper. You can also try layers of different textures and physical embellishments. Ribbons, rings and paper trimmings can add depth to any wedding invitation.
Anna Griffin and Her Brand of Wedding Invitations
Thursday, September 23rd, 2010Darling of the paper craft industry, graphic designer Anna Griffin comes by her love of art and design naturally, she grew up in a family of artists. It is also not surprising that her love of art brought her to wedding invitations – one of her first jobs out of college was working with famed wedding designer Vera Wang. In 1994, Griffin set out on her own, launching a line of custom designed, hand-crafted wedding invitations that borrow heavily from beautiful traditional botanical prints and Victoriana.
In the years since, the name Anna Griffin has become synonymous with high quality paper crafting designs. Her company released the first line of imprintable wedding invitations for the home crafter, do-it-yourself bride who wanted a hand in making her own invitations without sacrificing a professional quality wedding invitation. Anna Griffin invokes vellum and ribbon, elegant traditional patterns and all the details that make wedding finery, well, fine.
While the Anna Griffin line now encompasses craft papers of all kinds for home scrap-bookers and textile patterns, wedding invitations are still at the foundation of her success. Anna Griffin wedding invitations are among the most beautiful and sought after of all the major design lines.
The Anna Griffin Wedding Album line of wedding invitations is the epitome of the Griffin style. Resplendent in ribbons, decorated with touches of platinum and silver, they are elegant and stylish in a classic and traditional way. The Anna Griffin Celadon Repousse wedding invitations are an example of Griffin’s ability to combine modern ideas with traditional patterns and present a wedding invitation that is as timeless as it is modern. The conventional is in the feeling, stately and elegant, but the color, a subtle jade, and the square shape are definitely taken from the modern book of weddings. The sage patterned background panel is set off by the sage ribbon corners that hold the custom created Oyster white printed panel against the delicate floral pattern.
Another traditional, but not conventional, design offered in the Anna Griffin Wedding Album collection is the Platinum Swirls wedding invitation. The invitation consists of four separate layers, in the tradition of the most romantic and elegant of handmade invitations and Victorian cards. The backing layer is a heavyweight ecru with a fine platinum border, in the tradition of wedding invitations throughout the generations. A delicate paper patterned with platinum swirls forms a middle layer between the ecru backing and the elegantly bordered wording panel. Between the swirls and your wording, a satin platinum ribbon lends an additional touch of elegance.
The Anna Griffin Floral Wedding Invitations collection is pure romance personified. These floral-patterned papers are the designs on which Anna Griffin has built her reputation and on which her personal style is based, and they are nowhere more at home than they are in wedding invitations. Floral patterns embellish envelope linings and decorate wedding invitations. Floral prints lend a romantic touch to all of the accessories and elements of wedding stationery, including save the date cards, enclosure cards and thank you cards. As pretty and traditional as the patterns are, though, the wedding invitations bring a modern aesthetic to patterns taken from antique botanical prints.
The modern touch is evident in the styling of the Floral Roses Matchbook Invitation, which includes a printed or printable panel and a floral jacket that can be tied together with an elegant satin ribbon, included with the invitation. The Matchbook style is a delightful nod to modern paper crafters, who routinely fasten papers together with buttons, ribbons and bows. The rose pattern on the matchbook is reminiscent of the most romantic of Victorian prints.
Another delightfully romantic Anna Griffin design combines tradition and modern style with lovely roses in a completely different and unusual wedding invitation. The wedding invitation includes a printed or printable panel on which you can print the wording of your invitation. The heavy ecru paper is embellished with a subtly embossed border that is designed to peek at the sides of the scalloped, rose-patterned vellum wrapper. The entire wrap is tied with a delicate satin ribbon and bow to complete a wedding invitation that evokes the romance of the Victorian era.
One of the most innovative and bold of the Anna Griffin wedding invitation designs, though, is the button pocket invitation style. The Black and White Floral Button Pocket Invitation is part of the Anna Griffin printable wedding invitation collection. Each wedding invitation set includes an ecru invitation panel with a beveled border, a button pocket with a diagonal slash design and matching envelopes. Other printable wedding invitations in the Anna Griffin line include floral vellum side panels, buttons and ribbons.
In a very short time, designer Anna Griffin has made a name for herself as a graphic designer who can combine romance and whimsy, throw in a touch of elegance and create wedding invitations that are unique and memorable