A simple guide to choosing your wedding stationery and creating the perfect theme for your wedding celebration

Start early

Planning a wedding is a stressful event at the best of times so try not to add to your workload by leaving things until the last minute! Wedding invitations are typically sent out six to eight weeks before your wedding date and you will need to allow plenty of time before that to finalise your wedding stationery design, place your order and receive your invitations from the printer.

You will also need to consider the time it will take to write your guests names, address the envelopes and get them all in the post.

Make sure to get started with your wedding stationery order as early as possible and remember to factor in a bit of extra time to allow for any unforeseen delays.

Decide on your style

There’s a wide range of styles and designs to choose from and there’s a design to suit all tastes and budgets or you may even have an idea for a fully customised wedding stationery design. You may also want to match your wedding stationery to a particular colour scheme you plan to use throughout the event.

Once you have decided on your design, color scheme, paper and format, you can start thinking about the content and wording.

Choose your wording

Your wedding invitation wording will depend on your overall style and theme of your wedding. You could choose to use a classic style for a formal event or change the wording to a more convivial style for a more light-hearted event.

Whatever you choose, try not to mis-match the graphic style and the wording style. Think about keeping formal wording with a formal design and in-formal wording with an in-formal design. While this isn’t a hard and fast rule, an obviously mis-matched style should be avoided.

Keep it simple

Remember not to overcrowd your invitation with excessive wording or unnecessary details. Your invitation needs to convey a simple message to your guest and provide them with the essential details for your wedding celebration.

If necessary, additional information can easily be provided on a separate venue information card and popped into the same envelope along with the invitation.

Get the details right

It may seem obvious, but make sure that you have all of your wedding and venue details finalised and up to date before you proceed to finished design and submitting your order. Times, dates and other minor details can often change during the course of planning your wedding so make sure to keep on top of the fine details and update your designer and printer during the process. Details such as this are easily overlooked when planning your wedding and a simple miscommunication can be costly in the long run.

Pre-Address the envelopes

It’s always worth considering the time and effort it takes to write your guests names and addresses on both the invitation and the envelope. While hand written wedding invitations add a nice personal touch, a useful option worth considering is having the stationery printer add the individual names and addresses at the printing stage. This saves you a lot of time and effort, ensures the name and address is always fully legible and means you receive your wedding invitations all ready to add the stamp and pop in the post.

Double check the proof

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of carefully proof-reading your final design, making sure to double check the details such as times, dates and venue. Once you sign off on the final design, an error discovered later will mean a re-print, costing you valuable time as well as money.

If possible, have a second or even a third person read and re-read your wedding invitation proof before you give your printer the OK to print.

Order extra

Before placing your order, finalise your numbers and add a few extra. Re-ordering additional extra items can end up being very costly overall so it’s far more economical to add more to the order than you need, even if they don’t end up being used.