Wedding Wednesday: Tip of the Week...What the Pros Want You to Know, part 6

DG's 12 Week Series of Tips from the Pros!

Invitations & Stationery…

Always order 5-10% more invitations above your initial count. It pays to have those extras on hand! You'd be amazed at the in-laws and old family friends that come out of the wood work when a wedding is announced! Also, as the RSVPs from your initial set of invitees come back and you realize you have room for a few more it’s helpful to have extra invites available to invite additional guests.

Plan to send your invitation out a minimum of 8-10 weeks before your big day (and even earlier if you are inviting overseas guest or planning a destination wedding). With these dates in mind, count back and order your invitations at least 2-4 weeks before this time. And always allow yourself a little 'buffer' time (in all of your preparations) to keep your stress level down.

To create a grander, more complete look for your wedding, tie your theme to your wedding invitations (or conversely, tie your invitations to your theme). The invitations are the first glimpse your guests get of the special day to come so make a statement! Tying all of your pieces, from your wedding day programs and favours, through to your thank you cards creates a unified, complete look. Keeping your wedding day vision in mind as you select all of these pieces will ensure you get the day of your dreams.

~ Elaine, Orchid Creative

There are many things to keep in mind when ordering invitations and the best way to ensure a successful experience is to hire qualified stationers, but here are a few key ones to take special note of… When creating your guest list and providing your stationer with the total number of invitations required, be sure to count households and couples, not individual people. You would send only one invitation to each household.

Often, a guest will forget to sign the RSVP card before sending it back. To keep tabs on those guests, make a master list with each couple being given a number. On the inside flap of the reply envelope, using a pencil, put the number that corresponds with the guest. Then, in the event that you receive any blanks, you simply go to the number on the inside flap of the envelope and cross reference it to your master list to see who the guests are!

The trend in past years has been to put the letter M on the reply card line to indicate where to put your name when you reply to the bride (i.e. Mr. Brad Pitt or Mrs. Angelina Jolie). These days, we have simplified the process and put either "name" or "guests" where the M used to be.

Example RSVP Card:

Please respond by January 5, 2008

Name(s)

Delighted to attend

Regretfully decline

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