Wedding Stationery Guide

If you are anything like us, you will want everything about your day – including the build-up to it – to be just perfect. So to help you along the way to your perfect wedding, we have put together a wedding stationery guide.

Our wedding stationery guide is not simply a mechanism for us to tell you how great our stationery is and that your wedding won’t be the same without it (although we hope you agree that we do have some rather scrumptious wedding invitation designs!) but rather is a source of information on the different things you need to be thinking about and the decisions you need to make when it comes to your wedding stationery.

Your own sense of style and taste will guide your decision on the type of wedding stationery you opt for, but we hope our expertise in the design and production of wedding and civil partnership stationery will help make this part of your wedding planning just that little bit easier.

Save the Date

Save the date cards are what we refer to as the ‘holding statement’ of the wedding stationery world. They’re not essential and they can add to the overall cost of your wedding stationery, but they can be very useful…

Many couples settle on a date for their wedding before they choose a venue. By sending save the date cards to your guests, you can given them plenty of advance warning to plan their diaries for your wedding day while also giving yourself all the time you need to make that all-important decision about where your wedding celebrations will take place. Save the date cards are particularly useful if your chosen wedding date clashes with a popular annual event or is during the holiday season.

Wedding Invitations

You can start looking around at the different styles and types of wedding stationery from the moment you have said “yes” but you will need to draw up your guest list before you order your stationery so you have an idea of how many wedding invitations you are going to need.

Depending on the kind of wedding or civil partnership you are having, you may need both wedding invitations and evening invitations. If you are having a fairly traditional wedding with a wedding breakfast followed by an evening reception, then unless you have an unlimited budget, you will be inviting some of your guests to the evening celebrations only; you will need to send them an ‘evening invitation’. For your other guests, who will be attending the entire day, you will need to send a ‘wedding invitation’ or ‘civil partnership invitation’.

When working out how many wedding invitations you need to order, you should allow one invite per individual, couple or family. The same applies for evening invitations. We would also recommend that you order a few extra of each of your wedding stationery items (around 5% of your total) to allow for mistakes when writing the name of your guests into the invitation (unless you are choosing not to personalise your invitations) We would still recommend ordering the extras even if you are using a professional calligrapher to write your invitations).

You may also wish to send wedding invitations to those guests you know in advance cannot make it on the day as they will then have a little keepsake of your special day, even if they can’t be with you to celebrate in person.

When should you send your wedding invitations?

You should aim to send your invitations out to your guests at least two to three months before you wedding. When planning the timings, don’t forget to factor in the time it will take to write and address your invitations.

You should also check the lead times for ordering required by your favourite wedding stationery company (which will vary depending on the style of invitations you choose – as a general rule, handmade wedding invitations require longer lead times than printed ones).

Perfect Wedding Stationery

The last thing you want is for your wedding stationery to arrive only to discover that your name is spelt incorrectly in the insert. Always, always, always ask your wedding stationer for a proof of your stationery (such as wedding invitation inserts, order of service, menus) before they go to print. Check the proofs thoroughly, check them again and then, if possible, get someone else to check them for you so you are absolutely sure there are no mistakes. Once you’re happy, you can sign them off and your wedding stationery company can get on and print your invitations and other wedding stationery items.

R.S.V.P.

Planning and organising your wedding can be very exciting but it can also be time-consuming. The last thing you want to be doing is spending lots of time chasing responses to your invitations, so the R.S.V.P. can be your best friend at this point in the wedding planning process!

If you would rather not have to chase responses, then you can make it easier for your guests to respond to your wedding invitation by including an appropriately addressed R.S.V.P. card with your invitations. Many wedding stationers can offer fully co-ordinated reply cards for you to send with your invitations.

Order of Service / Order of Ceremony

If you are having a church wedding then it is a very good idea to provide your guests with an order of service so that they can follow the order of events and join in the hymns you have chosen. Your priest or vicar will be able to help you with the content of your order of service. You should also be aware that you (and not your wedding stationer) will be responsible for obtaining any copyright permissions if you wish to reproduce the words to a hymn in your order of service.

The details of the copyright holder will appear at the bottom of the hymn in your church’s hymn book. Very old hymns will fall outside the copyright protection and you will be able to reproduce these without obtaining prior permission. Again, your priest or vicar should be able to advise you on which hymns are copyright protected.

If you are having a civil ceremony or civil partnership, you may still wish to provide your guests with an order of events (order of ceremony) so that they can follow proceedings and also retain a keepsake of your special day. Your wedding stationer should be able to co-ordinate your order of service or ceremony cards with the rest of your wedding stationery.

As the information for inclusion in your order of service or order of ceremony will not always be known at the time you place your wedding stationery order, your wedding stationer will usually be happy to gather this information from you at a later date. Speak to your chosen designer about the exact timescales they work to.

Menus, Place Cards and Table Plans

If you are having a traditional wedding breakfast following your marriage / civil partnership ceremony, you may wish to have menus, place cards and table plans that are co-ordinated with your wedding invitations.

If you are planning a sit-down meal, it is very likely that you will be putting together a seating plan. Place cards make it much easier for you to ensure your guests sit where you want them to and also adds that little extra personal touch.

You may also wish to provide menu cards for your guests if you are having a sit-down rather than a buffet-style meal. One per table is fine, but if you have big tables you may wish to consider having more than one. If you’re feeling really extravagant, you can even provide one menu per guest.

Thank You Cards

Most couples are fortunate enough to receive wedding presents from they guests and if you are one of these, you will want to say ‘thank you’ for the gifts you have received. Most wedding stationery companies will be able to provide you with co-ordinated thank you cards to match your wedding invitations.

You should aim to send out your thank you cards within a few weeks of your wedding or return from your honeymoon. When you open your presents, don’t forget to make a note of who bought what or you could end up with a bit of a headache!

Thank you cards can also be sent if you just simply want to say thank you to your guests for joining in your wedding celebrations.

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We hope you have found this wedding stationery guide useful and we wish you every happiness for your wedding day and the future.