Selecting your invitations

There are thousand of styles of invitations to choose from so plan on spending plenty of time looking at samples. Your invitation should reflect you and your fiancé’s personal style and coordinate with the colors and theme of your wedding.

When deciding on your invitations, you should consider the type of printing that you will want. The two types of printing that are most frequently used for wedding invitations are thermography and engraving. Thermography comes in many colors to match your wedding scheme while engraving is more formal but also more expensive.

Ordering your invitations

You should order your invitations around three months and mail them out six to eight weeks (during busy times) before your wedding. You will want to make sure to give yourself plenty of time to proofread the text and address the envelopes. When ordering your invitations, you should order ten percent extra envelopes to test the ink (especially if you are having a calligrapher address them) and to allow for mistakes.

When you order your invitations, you will want to also order any enclosures you will be using such as reception cards, response cards and hotel cards. Some brides order informal cards with her and her spouse’s married names to use as thank you cards.

Here is a list of a few places that you can get your invitations from:

• Independent printers

• Stationary stores

• Department stores

• Mail order catalogs

Addressing your invitations

Your invitations should be addressed by hand. Do not use printed labels. If you or someone you know has beautiful penmanship, then you may want to address the invitations yourself, otherwise you will want to hire a calligrapher to do them.

Something to consider

If you are working on a tight budget and have access to a computer, you can create your own invitations and thank you notes and print them with a laser printer on high-quality paper. If you do not have one at home, you can take your design to a copy shop or printer.