Wedding Invitation Shopping

One of the first things that may pop into the head of a newly engaged girl is the wedding invitation. She knows this is the one piece of paper that will make it all official, aside from the marriage license of course. A wedding invitation may appear at first glance to be one of the easier tasks to planning a wedding. This can not be further from the truth. Much thought must go into a wedding invitation as it will set the tone for the entire wedding ceremony.
Couples should begin shopping for their wedding invitation at least four months prior to the date of the ceremony. A timetable of four months provides time for shopping, having the invitations printed and up to three weeks for addressing and assembling before being placed in the mail. An ideal rule of thumb is to have the wedding invitation in the mail at least six to eight weeks in advance of the wedding date. This allows for time in receiving guest responses, contacting those who have not yet responded and making a final head count.

Start with the first order of business, shopping for the wedding invitation. This can be done at a number of various shops. A couple can elect to go with a personal printer who will design, print and possibly address the invitations for the couple. There are also retail card shops that carry specialized lines of wedding invitations. When an invitation is selected from a card shop, little design input can be given. Once selected and ordered, the printing is done off-site and picked up when ready.

Many wedding dress shops carry sample invitation books for a bride to browse through while dress shopping. Some of these locations may even work with a preferable invitation company that will offer a discount by ordering the invitations from that company. Once the invitations are ordered, it will take anywhere from a few weeks to two months for the invitations to be printed with the couple’s detailed information. A couple will receive a notice from the company when the invitations are ready to be picked up. In the event a mail order company was utilized, the invitations will appear in the mailbox.

Once the invitations are back from the printer, the next step is addressing and assembly. This requires a team of bride’s helpers as it is quite a time consuming task. Each invitation needs to be assembled correctly. Once assembled there is an inner envelope and outer envelope that needs to be addressed. The inner envelope can be in first person format such as “Uncle John” or something similar. The outer envelope is the one that must be in proper address form for mailing.

With the wedding invitation in the mail, a couple can breathe a sigh of relief and wait for the responses to come in. One thing to keep in mind is that wherever an invitation is order from, a proof will be provided before any final printing begins. Plan ahead and start shopping for a wedding invitation as soon as possible to avoid hassles later.

As seen in: