When it comes to creating your wedding invitations, working with a custom stationer offers a range of benefits. From personalized designs to expert guidance, their expertise can help make your invitations truly one-of-a-kind and ensure a seamless process from start to finish. To ensure you're ready to dive right into the design process (and avoid any unnecessary charges for extra revision rounds), it's important to come prepared!
Here are five key things you'll need to have ready before starting your invitations:
1. Entrée Options
If you're offering plated meals at your wedding, it's essential to have those options finalized before creating your RSVP cards. Including the meal choices on the RSVP cards allows guests to indicate their preferences, making it easier for you to plan and communicate with your caterer. By having this information ready, your custom stationer can seamlessly incorporate it into your invitation suite.
2. Timeline / Order of Events
Having a clear timeline and order of events is crucial for your invitations. You'll at least want to know the times for the main events: the ceremony, cocktail hour, dinner, and reception end time. Including these times in your suite helps guests plan their day accordingly and ensures they arrive (and plan to leave) on time. Additionally, you can include extra, fun elements in your timeline to excite your guests (for example, a late-night snack or a sparkler send-off). Sharing these details with your custom stationer allows them to design a comprehensive and informative invitation suite.
3. Finalized Guest List
Creating a well-organized guest list is an important step in the invitation process. Be sure to have the names and addresses of everyone who is invited to your wedding. Remember, you'll be sending an invitation suite to each household, not each individual guest! Having this prepared ahead of time will ensure your invitation estimate is accurate (estimates are usually based around how many suites you're ordering) and provide the necessary components for your envelopes to be designed.
4. A Clear Idea of Your Color Palette and Wedding Style:
To create a cohesive and visually appealing invitation suite, it's crucial to have a clear idea of your color palette and wedding style. You can draw inspiration from various elements such as your venue, floral colors, season and bridal party attire. Knowing these details will help your custom stationer design invitations that align with your vision. If you're still in the process of determining your wedding style upon booking, mention that to the stationer so they know to reconnect before beginning any designs (therefore avoiding unnecessary revisions).
5. Accommodations and Transportation Info
If you're providing hotel accommodations at preferred hotels, that can be extremely helpful for guests to know when booking their travel plans for your wedding. Often times there is a group code and deadline for booking to receive a discounted rate which is crucial to point out to ensure guests can take advantage of the booking opportunity. And, if you're providing transportation to and from the booked hotels and wedding venue(s) it's important to provide that info within your wedding suite so guests know when to anticipate getting picked up and dropped off.
Working with a custom stationer for your wedding invitations can be a rewarding experience, resulting in beautifully crafted stationery that reflects your unique style. By coming to the process prepared with finalized plated meal options, a clear timeline, a well-organized guest list, a defined color palette/wedding style and your accommodation/transportation info, you can ensure a smooth and enjoyable journey from start to finish, creating beautiful keepsake stationery to treasure for a lifetime.