Wedding Invitations - Create Your Own?

Visit our website www.beachphotography.com

How To Create Your Own Wedding Invitations

Your wedding invitations are your first impressions. Before you get people to your ceremony or reception, the first impression they’ll have of your wedding is what comes in that invitation envelope. Taking a little extra care in designing your invitation will ensure that you’re sending the right message to all the guests you’ve invited to share in your big day. For example, casual or formal.

Make Your Guest List First

Create your guest list first, prior to designing and making invitations.  Once you get an good estimate on how many guests you will be inviting, you will be better able to figure a budget.  If you have a rather large guest list, you might not want to go with the most expensive invitations.  However, if your list is not that large, you can go all out.  Seeing who you will be inviting may also effect the look you are going for.

What  You Should Include

You may want your invitations to be beautiful and represent your style, but be sure you’re including all the necessary information. If someone else is paying for the wedding, you may want to give a mention to your host in your wording. Your basic info such as who is getting married, the location of the ceremony and reception, and the time and date of each should be clear and easy to read. A map and directions could be helpful as well if you’ve picked a ceremony or reception location that is not familiar to your family and friends, or if you have out of town guests that will be attending.

Standard and Simple or All the Bells and Whistles

Depending on your budget, you’ll need to decide what will be included with the invite. Generally you’ll have the envelope, invite, and response card. You could opt to have a separate reception card and you may even decide to get another card printed up with a map and directions. You may also want a thank you card for after the wedding to be part of your invitation package. Of course, the more you add, the more it will cost, so determine your budget before brainstorming your invitations. Pre-wedding favors can be included as well in the form of bookmarks, pictures, or some other little memento that suits your particular theme.  We print bookmarks if you are interested in those to go in with your invitation, or to have at each place setting at the reception.  Or sometimes people will go with wallets (in or out of a frame).

Adding Your Personal Touches

Deciding on your theme before designing your invitations will give you the opportunity to make your invites match your wedding. If your wedding will be casual and on the beach, inform your guests of this in the invitation so they can dress appropriately for your chosen venue. Alternatively, if you’re expecting strict formal attire, relay that info in your invitations as well.

Let your guests know when to reply by and ask for any information you’ll need, such as dinner option preference, on the response card. Proof-read your invitations before having them all printed up to avoid any costly corrections. Your invitations don’t have to break your budget to be beautiful as long as you take your time in deciding what paper, ink, and font will suit your wedding best.

Where to Buy What You Will Need

Michaels Crafts and Hobby Lobby are great sources for embellishments you might want to put on your invitation.  Envelopes.com has a wide variety of envelopes that you can use to put your invitation in.  They can even be imprinted with your return address. 

Photo Invitations

Engagement photos are great to use on invitations.  It will turn your invitation into a keepsake.  We will be more than happy to give you the digital image that you can use to print your own invitations.  We can also design and print a variety of high quality paper choices and sizes for you.