These days some couples are looking for an alternative to the traditional wordings of Wedding Invitations. Whether because of divorce or re-marriage rest assured there is a suitable wording for every family. We have chosen some examples which we hope will help when deciding how to word your own invites.

For our examples Sarah Louise Walsh will be marrying Jack David Spencer.

Standard Wording:

Mr. and Mrs. John Walsh
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Sarah Jane Walsh
to
Jack David Spencer

At the Royal Pavilion,Brighton

Saturday, the Twenty First of July
11am in the Morning

If one parent is hosting the wedding:

Ms. Natalie Thompson

requests the honour of your presence
at the wedding of her daughter
Sarah Louise Walsh

etc.

Divorced parents are hosting the wedding together

Mr. John Walsh
and
Ms. Natalie Thompson

request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Sarah Louise Walsh

etc.

Divorced parent and new stepparent are hosting the wedding:

Mr. and Mrs. Paul Akins
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of Mrs Akins daughter
Sarah Louise Walsh

etc.

Child of divorced and remarried parents both hosting the wedding

Mr. and Mrs. John Walsh
and
Mr. and Mrs. Paul Akins
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Sarah Louise Walsh
etc.

Wording your invites can be tricky in sensitive family situations but we hope our examples may have made it a little easier. Now there’s just that table plan to get started on!

Here’s a list of what we find are the 7 Common Mistakes brides make when choosing and ordering their Wedding Stationery!

Not allowing enough time. Typically a stationer will need three weeks to produce your invites. You will also need up to a week to proof them and a week to write them and post them. So 6-8 weeks is ideal and on average they should be posted out 6-12 weeks before your wedding.

Not proof reading properly. Most good wedding stationers will keep an eye out for obvious typos, but it is your responsibility to check spellings of your venue, guests’ names, etc. Once you have checked and signed off you will have to pay for mistakes you may have missed in the text. Be warned, as this can be frustrating for both you and your printer and will cost you money.

Getting quantities wrong. Generally speaking you don’t need an invite for every single guest as many will be couples and families who can share an invite. Having said that, be sure to have enough spare in case you are planning to send a second wave to fill in gaps left by people not attending. You also need to allow extras for mistakes when writing them.

Not Budgeting Enough. The biggest costs for printers are design and set up time, which is why invitations sometimes appear expensive in relation to their material costs of paper and ink. Do allow 2-4% of your wedding budget to cover the true costs of your wedding stationery and be aware that the more luxurious your invites, the more they will cost. Many companies offer DIY options for handmade invitations, which can help you to stay on budget.

Poor handwriting. You may need to handwrite your invitation envelopes and items like place cards, so if you don’t have nice handwriting, or know of anyone who can help, it is worth considering a calligrapher or asking your stationer if they can do this for you.

Copying Designs. It is best not to ask a designer to copy another company’s work.  It demeans their design ability and brings bad karma to your wedding because it is essentially theft. Avoid doing this.

Remembering to Thank Guests. Remember to order thank you cards in advance of your wedding so that you can show your appreciation for guests attending and for any wedding gifts you may have received.

Save the Date cards aren’t just for couples marrying abroad, a lot of couples use them in order to buy themselves more time so they can organise the rest of the information needed for their wedding invitations.

Butterfly Love Save the Date Cards

Many people plan their holidays and spending budgets up to a year in advance these days, so it’s important to let your guests know the date of your wedding as early as possible if you want to be sure of them attending. We recommend sending Save the Date cards out 6 – 12 months in advance of the wedding date for couples marrying abroad or at peak holiday times like July and August. It’s also very important to do this if you have a lot of guests travelling from abroad. Giving as much notice as possible allows guests to plan ahead and avoid clashes in their calendars (which is ultimately why Save the Date cards are so important, particularly for those in circles of friends and family with busy schedules).

The information you include doesn’t have to be too detailed. Although the wedding reception or church venue doesn’t have to be confirmed, we recommend giving your guests an idea of the geographic location you are planning. We also advise including an email or telephone number so guests are able to contact you if they have any questions.

Schedule/Time frame: How long in advance should I order my Wedding Stationery?

Your wedding stationery can be split into 3 sections: before the day, on the day and after the day stationery.

Before the day stationery includes your wedding invitations along with save the date cards, rsvp cards, evening invitations and information cards. You should be aiming to send your wedding invitations out at least 6 – 12 weeks before your wedding day, and up to 6 months in advance if you are having an overseas wedding. You must also allow time for the choosing process including receiving samples from your favourite companies. You should ideally start choosing your wedding stationery around 6 – 9 months before your wedding date.

On the day stationery includes your order of service cards, menu cards, place cards and table plan. You should look to have your on the day stationery delivered around 1 month before your wedding date if possible, although items such as your order of service cards rely on other plans falling into place.

After the day stationery is your thank you cards. It is always advisable to order these before your wedding, and if you’re really organised you can even write them before your wedding day to give yourself one less thing to think about after!

Where to start:

The internet is the first starting place but with so many companies vying for your attention we advise honing your searches to be more specific, such as “luxury wedding stationery” or “pink wedding invitations”. Most couples know their colour scheme before choosing their wedding stationery and find this is the easiest way to search, but not all companies will list their stationery in this way so you may need to search for other qualities that you’re looking for.

Wedding Shows are also a good place to find some great stationers, where you get the chance to view the stationery up close and ask the suppliers any questions you have (wedding shows are a must not only for stationery but all your wedding planning needs!). Ivy Ellen recommend and exhibit at the National Wedding Shows and Designer Wedding Show.

Wedding Magazines also feature wedding stationers and you can often find some exciting designs and theme ideas to tie your wedding scheme together. Popular UK titles include Brides, Wedding Ideas and You and Your Wedding.

What should I look for when choosing my wedding stationery?

Design. Start off by looking for a design that catches your eye and you think could set the tone for your wedding. Aside from the design there are other details that set the best companies apart from the rest.

Quality. The quality of materials used has a huge impact on the feel and effect of your wedding stationery. Look for heavyweight boards along with good quality embellishments such as thick ribbons or crystals. It’s the little details that make your wedding stationery special.

Reliability. Look for a company who can deliver. A good website, coverage in wedding magazines and regular wedding show exhibitors are usually good signs that the company is dedicated to offering a professional service.

What questions should I ask suppliers?

The first question to always ask suppliers is “how soon after ordering will my stationery be delivered”. Ivy Ellen promise to deliver your stationery within 3 weeks of receiving your proof confirmation, but it is always vital to your planning to know when to expect your wedding stationery.

It is also important to ask to see samples of your stationery so you can check the quality and ensure your stationery fits in with your theme. Most stationers will send you invitation samples for free, or for a nominal fee.

Who are Ivy Ellen’s favourite wedding stationers?

Here at Ivy Ellen we love design led stationery and work tirelessly to offer the best designs around. If you can’t find what you want from us please do tell us what you would like to see. If you still feel you would like something else, here are a few of our favourite luxury wedding stationery companies:

Chartula Studio use exquisite laser cutting techniques to produce elegant eye catching stationery.

Louise Richardson offers a bespoke service and uses beautiful boards and expert printing techniques to produce stunning stationery exclusively for your special day.

If you’re looking for design led letterpress stationery then look no further than Hello Lucky! Using their own authentic presses they create some of the best letterpress stationery this side of the Atlantic (and you can also buy their invites in the states).

What are the main points to remember?

• Try to avoid general web searches like “wedding invitations” and be more specific to what you are looking for.
• Order samples to check the quality and feel of the stationery before committing to buying.
• Order your wedding invitations between 6 – 9 months prior to your wedding date to allow enough time for your guests to rsvp.
• Delivery times are usually from proof confirmation, so the sooner you check and return your proof, the sooner you will receive your stationery.

Glossary

Board
Papers your stationery items are made from.

Digital Printing
Digital printing is a modern printing technique that does not involve physical printing plates and is perfect for personalised designs.

Foiling
Foiling is a specialised finishing process that uses specially made ¼ inch thick metal die (or printing block) on a hot press to transfer gorgeous foil text onto your wedding stationery, making it unique and totally stunning.

FSC Accredited
The FSC is the Forest Stewardship Council and FSC accredited boards are those sourced from sustainable rainforests where 3 to 4 trees are planted for each tree cut down.

GSM
Often used as a measure of quality, GSM stands for grams per square metre and refers to the weight of a board. Anything over 300gsm is a good quality board, and all of our boards are 350gsm.

Litho Printing
Litho printing (or lithography) is a specialist printing technique that involves a plate pressing oiled colours onto a board to print a design.

Letterpress
A letterpress is a traditional printing machine that presses paper onto a raised, inked printing block to produce an image.

It’s not often that brides look at wedding dresses and think “I could do that”. Usually you look at a dress, think “wow that‘s gorgeous”, try it on and imagine yourself in it on your big day. Then it’s just a question of how are going to pay for it. Cash or credit. It’s rare to look at a wedding dress and just see fabric, and a project that, in your mind, you could totally do on your own. This is the dress for you, you’re going to buy it and you’re going to feel a million dollars in it on your big day. Many brides and grooms see wedding stationery differently. They just see paper and text, and cannot see what’s in it for them when they spend their hard earned budget on good quality stationery. So what’s in it for you?

Well, firstly you get expert advice. Do you know about typesetting, colour balance, composition, wording, paper stocks, envelope styles or FSC accreditation? Even if you know some of these things you may not really understand how to put all these things together. As Brian De Palma, the film director, once said, “anyone can record something on a video camera, but directing is the art of invoking emotion and feeling in your audiences”. It’s the same with wedding stationery. Top wedding designers bring all their design experience into creating wedding stationery that feels great, to look at and to touch. Choose a company that lives and breathes paper and design and watch the emotional response it creates in you and your guests to enhance your special day.

Secondly, those that do choose the DIY route, always underestimate the time and effort it takes into designing, producing and distributing their own wedding stationery. We know because we just set up a new company (Ivy Ellen) to do this. It took us six months to get it all sorted and we are experts in greetings cards with 10 years experience designing, producing and selling cards to the finest shops in the world. Working with a wedding stationery expert means that all this work is done for you. All you have to do is choose a company and a design that feels right for you and match it to your colour scheme. If you choose to make your own stationery, whatever you do, avoid copying a wedding designers work to cut corners. This is bad Karma and disrupts the positive flow of creative energy around the world. Not something for your special day to be a part of.

Finally, working with a quality wedding stationery company means that you are contributing to the creative spirit in humankind. Just like buying a work of art from an artist brings warmth and joy to your soul and connects you to that artist, so it is with buying beautiful wedding stationery from a good company. In fact often you are supporting a network of creative people connected to bringing the stationery into life. We work with designers, illustrators and even musicians who supplement their incomes, by working with us, to keep doing what they love. What better sentiment to add to your wedding than to spread the love of your day out to people who are pursuing their dreams and creating beautiful things to exist in the world.

Gorgeous wedding stationery adds to the rich visual fabric of your day and brightens up your guests’ tables, it sends a cue to your guests as to what to expect and shows them what that you care about them, you care about beauty in the world and you want to share the joy and harmony of your most special of days with them. Most importantly though it is an emotional expression of your own self, like the song you choose to dance your first dance to or the dress you choose to wear. It can have a profound life affirming meaning beyond just paper and text.