Invitation Etiquette

Your first connection to wedding guests is through invitations. These informational cards set the tone for your wedding and should reflect the theme and scope of your affair. Here are some guidelines you can use to help make this process a little easier for you.

• Write full guest names on the inside envelope of your wedding invitation. Only the people listed are invited to the event.
• Don’t write “and Guest” on the invitation. Try your best to find out whom your cousin or friend will be bringing to the wedding, and include his or her name on the invitation.
• Wedding-invitation wording is a personal preference. Most couples include their parents’ names on the invitations. There are many choices to choose from and most are available on the Internet.
• Gift preferences, registries or any other matters involving gifts should not be mentioned on the invitation or included in the package. If you have a preference, like monetary gifts or a donation to a charity, spread it through word of mouth prior to the event.
• Don’t use labels on your invitations. Hand write them, use a nice font and print the envelopes using a computer, or get them done with professional calligraphy.

Some people choose to even send out save-the-date cards that go out anywhere from one month to two months prior to when you send out the invitations. These are especially nice for guests that are traveling from out of town so that they can make the proper arrangements and plan accordingly. This can be done through cards, post cards, or even through email.

There are so many beautiful, unique invitations out there so that each bride can find something that best represents their event. For me, I had a lady in my parents church, Shelly Carson, hand make all of my invitations. All I did was tell her the colors and a little about my special day and she created these one-of-a-kind invitations that represent my wedding day perfectly.

Something else that has helped me organize the list of all my guests and their addresses was to create an excel spreadsheet. This is helpful because you have all of your guest’s information in the same place. Each of my guests are assigned a number which is penciled in on the back of their response card, just incase they forget to put their names of the response card, I’ll know who is responding by their assigned number. This will save tons of time because I won’t have to try and figure out who has responded and who has not. The excel sheet also is nice to have so that you don’t have to try and locate all the addresses again once it’s time to send out thank you cards.

Finally, after you’ve picked out your invitations, gathered all your invitations, addressed them and stamped them, you just need to get them in the mail at least six weeks prior to your wedding date. This gives everyone plenty of time to respond so that you can give your vendors an exact head count no later than two weeks prior to the event.

Overall, just have fun. Invite your friends over and get your fiancé to help stuff and stamp the envelopes. You can have an invitation party! This is one of the most time consuming parts of planning your wedding so once it’s over, just kick back and wait for those response cards to start flooding in. It’s exciting to see who is going to be there to celebrate your special day. Make sure you mail out those thank you cards too!

*All tips come from “Your Wedding 2005 Bridal Guide and Planner” The Herald-Mail Company and from Tiffany’s own experiences. For more information about hand-made invitations email sbcards@visuallink.com.