Wedding Invitation Advice | UKbride

“Your ‘save the date’ cards or wedding invitations give the first impression of what your wedding will look and feel like,” says Tilly Wilkinson of UKbride.

“We receive a huge number of questions from our members about how they should be worded and when they should be sent out, so the following tips should answer the most common questions.”

1. Invitations to DIY for?

With a copy of Word and an inkjet printer, it’s tempting to save some cash and create your own DIY invitations.

The reality, though, is that using a proper wedding stationery firm and budgeting from £400 to £1,000 will allow you to ‘brand’ your wedding properly.

Professional stationers use heavier, more luxurious paper stock and have a wide choice of more professional looking fonts (no Comics Sans please!).

Fancy touches like the use of embossing, silver or gold foiling, spot-varnished matte wedding invitations and wood cut letter-pressing remain the preserve of the professionals.

A proper stationery firm can also ensure that your colour scheme and the design of your table plan, place cards and order of service are all consistent.

Often brides don’t realise how time-consuming creating invitations can be, especially if there’s additional decoration involved, so trying to create your own may prove a false economy.

2. When to Send Them

One question brides commonly ask is when to send out invitations. 33% of brides take two years to plan their day; 23% plan their wedding over the course of one year.

If you’re in the former category, send out Save The Date cards between 12 and 24 months ahead of the wedding.

If your wedding planning is taking a year, then just send out invitations as soon as you’ve confirmed the date with your venue, ideally allowing between six and 12 months.

3. Unique Ideas

Scouring the internet is the best way to gain a few imaginative ideas for your invitations. Ribbon, dried flowers and layers of different paper stocks are common, but alternative ideas for ‘save the dates’ and invitations are fridge magnets, balloons, jigsaw puzzle invites, invitations printed onto mugs, tea towel wedding invitations and even wedding invites printed onto the wrappers of chocolate bars or paper aeroplane invites.

We’ve even seen invitations that are packets of seeds which, when sown, will yield buttonholes for gents to wear or confetti!

4. Additional Wording

Couples can also use their invitations to stipulate all-day or evening only attendance, to request cash towards a honeymoon or cash-to-charity donations rather than gifts.

Some use the opportunity to specify an adults only policy, softened with a verse such as ‘we’d like you to let your hair down so we politely request no children; book a babysitter and relax for the night!’

5. RSVPs

If you’re stipulating an RSVP in your invitations, don’t be surprised by a lack of response.

You can improve matters slightly by giving a deadline for a formal acceptance, and by specifying a text message rather than postal RSVP, or by including an RSVP slip. Generally speaking though, you should anticipate having to chase your guests to confirm their attendance!