Choosing your Wedding Stationery

So you’ve booked your venue and you can’t wait to send out your save-the-dates or invitations to share the news and tell all your wedding guests the date and location of where you’ll be tying the knot! This is a point where you’ll likely be one of two brides.

While some brides absolutely adore beautiful custom stationery and love the feel of fancy paper in their hands, along with the wide variety the wedding stationery world can offer these days, other brides see wedding stationery as a mere necessary formality and would rather spend as little time and money on it as possible. It all depends on your priorities. Sometimes stationery can beautifully compliment the flowers and décor at a wedding, and sometimes brides prefer to have their stationery be as minimal as possible, so as not to interfere with the table decor. So your wedding stationery requirements depend entirely on your own personal preferences.

Wedding Stationery Options

Wedding Correspondence Stationery

• Save the Date Cards (Sent 6-12 months prior to the wedding)
• Invitations, RSVP and Detail Cards (Sent 6-8 weeks prior to the wedding)
• Thank You Cards (Sent 6-8 weeks after the wedding)

On the Day Wedding Stationery

• Programs
• Menus
• Seating Charts / Escort Cards
• Name / Place Cards
• Table Numbers

Other Fun Printable Wedding Stationery

• Wedding Direction Signs
• Personalized Cupcake Toppers
• Personalized Favor Tags
• Photobooth Signs
• Printable Photobook Props
• Personalized Food and Drink Flags
• Favor Labels (Jam Jar or Bottle labels)
• Printable Paper Bunting
• Mad Libs

(Above) Shot by JanineCollettePhotography.com

 

• Various websites offer fabulous online DIY save-the-dates and invitations which can either be emailed to your guests, or printed and posted. This is a huge money saver and one can often find themed stationery to match their wedding theme and colours pretty easily.
• Another option is to hire a stationery studio that is specialised in designing and creating wedding stationery. This is a fantastic option as you will be assigned a dedicated designer and every aspect of your stationery can be customised to look exactly how you want it to.
• For brides that are on a budget, or prefer to add that personal touch, home DIY wedding stationery is always an option too, but brides need to be well aware of the commitment it takes to produce even 50 invitations at home, never mind all the other stationery for the wedding day too.

How to Choose Your Wedding Stationery

Here, Nicci shares a few pointers to note when choosing your wedding stationery:

• It’s always a good idea to keep all your wedding stationery consistent throughout the build-up to your wedding and on your wedding day. Try to use the same colours and fonts throughout your stationery suite from your invitations to your table menus, and try to keep it matching your wedding theme and colours. This is also a great way to give your guests an indication, or even a little hint, of what they can expect on your big day.
• Custom stationery can be quite pricey so be sure to ask your stationery studio for a full quote of everything before embarking on the stationery process with them. The high cost of custom wedding stationery can be attributed to the fact that you’ll be making use of a qualified designer, as well as the printing and quality paper costs.
• To help your designer, or even yourself, before designing your stationery, collect as many reference pictures of the type of stationery you have in mind as possible. It will even help to include décor “look and feel” reference pictures or a mood board, to give your designer the exact picture of what you have in mind.
• A great new way to communicate all your wedding details to your guests is by having a wedding website. This is a fantastic way to share large amounts of information (that you wouldn’t want to put on your invitations) with both local and out of town guests, such as nearby accommodation, transport, itinerary for the days surrounding your wedding and your gift registry details, etc.

How to Avoid Stationery Pitfalls

• Check the spelling of absolutely everything! Your designer won’t know the spelling of your venue or the unique way your aunty Christeen (not Christine) spells her name.
• Allow enough time to plan your seating chart layout. It can take couples days on end trying to decide where certain friends and relatives should be seated at their reception and this can delay the design process.
• Allow your designer enough time to design your stationery. Remember it is an artistic process and for the best results, start well in advance so that you don’t need to worry about your stationery too close to your wedding date.
• A useful way to have your stationery ready on time is to make your RSVP date at least one and a half months before your wedding date so that you have all the details you need for your stationery well in advance.

To ensure that your stay on track with the rest of our Wedding Planning Series, we hope that you haven’t missed last week’s Selecting your Wedding Photographer {Wedding Planning Series}, which is a must-see for all brides-to-be.

Check out our Wedding Planning Series here!