10 Proven Tips To Choose The Perfect Wedding Invitation

Picking your perfect wedding invitation may be as stressful as choosing your wedding dress. First impressions count and the wedding invitation sets up the tone for the entire wedding. And don’t forget that this invite will forever live in your mother-in-law’s photo album! 😁

Once you’ve decided on the reception theme or its colors, it’s time to start looking for the perfect wedding invitation. But with so many options, etiquette and protocol, how will we even manage? Simple. Follow these 10 proven tips to ensure you end up with the perfect wedding invitation. Let’s start!

1- Pick your Perfect Wedding Invitation Theme

The invitation gives your guests a little peek into what your wedding will be like. So, this is all about how your invitation will accomplish that. It’s easier than you think.

What’s your wedding theme? Enchanted forest, urban chic, romantic industrial vintage, ultra glam or beachy-boho. Great. Dark and moody with greenery designs fit a woodland wedding. Acrylic invites are all the rage for both ultra glam and urban weddings.

Related: 19 Irresistible & Original Wedding Ideas (and How to Make them Happen)

If you decided there won’t be a wedding theme, have you decided on a color? Are you hosting a summery and brightly colored-bash, an elegant copper and marble soiree, or a classy and elegant ivory reception? A simple monogrammed invite is a great match for an intimate backyard wedding,

Finally, if color is not a key element, how about getting inspiration from the place or the event itself? Are you planning a destination or a brunch wedding? You can pick some elements like seashells, palm leaves or bagels and doughnuts to define the theme of your perfect wedding invitation!

2- The Design of the Perfect Wedding Invitation

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and what one bride is crazy for, makes another bride run for the hills. So, don’t worry if you are the only one that likes them. It’s your wedding after all.

Search for the overall look and feel of the invite. Trendy brides would probably kill for acrylic invites or moody colored invitations. Glam weddings may call for shimmery pocketfolds or gold foil stamped laser cut invitations. A more traditional bride may fall in love with classic white stock invitations with black or burnt sienna lettering.

Related: Learn How To DIY Save The Date Magnets In Only 10 Minutes

This all goes to show you that the design of the perfect invitation starts with what you like and envision as representative of your wedding. Identify a list of elements that convey the theme according to you. It will help you search and find that perfect wedding invitation.

3- How To Choose The Perfect Wedding Invitation: The Graphic Design

Your printer will need your choice of invitation layout and font pairing. Don’t despair. Let’s decide this ahead of time and not at the last minute. These two elements are crucial to the look of your invitations.

The layout refers to the text distribution on the printed pieces. It could be centered, flushed left or right or both! The font pairing is your choice of fonts. Both are super important to get the look you want.

There are different font types and they can be Sans Serif, Serif, Slab Serif, Script, Blackletter, Mono, Hand and Decorative. Unless you are going for a Goth look and feel, drop the Blackletter.

Sans Serif fonts, especially more geometric ones, give a more modern and industrial vibe. A great example is the Eurostile typekit, designed by Aldo Novarese in 1962. It boasts square shapes and round edges giving a sense of modern architecture. Italicized fonts are perfect for a more classic style. And the mix of both is out of this world!

Also, fonts are the latest wedding trend filling up *all* your feeds this year so you may want to play with a few combos to see what strikes your fancy. Pair a couple of fonts, one for the names and the other for the body of the invitation.

No matter what the invitation sample you have seen has on it, you are free to use any font and layout you want.

Take a Little Break to Check out These Amazing Wedding Invitations

Swipe left to Scroll Through the Photo Gallery.

4- The Invitation Set: How Many Pieces do you Really Need?

If you plan on inviting everybody to the religious ceremony but only a few to the wedding reception, you should consider adding a reception card to your invitation set. It is less expensive than printing two sets of invitations with different text. Another reason to use the reception card that you are fancy and want to impress your guests with all these cute cards. 😁

Let’s talk about the RSVP. If you need your guests to mail you back their response, you will have to provide them with the RSVP card and a little postage-paid envelope for them to fill out and mail back. If you’d rather have them confirm their assistance via text, email or phone, you can add an RSVP line of text to your invitation card and avoid the extra expense.

A third piece is the map. If your wedding reception is somewhere abroad or at a mountaintop and cell signal is poor, you may want to give directions and insert a map in the invitation envelope or pocket. Just in case, amiright?

5- How to Write Your Perfect Wedding Invitation

Formal, informal or somewhere in between? A choice needs to be made and examples of wedding invitation text and verses abound all over the web. We have some here, (link to verses) if you’d like to browse and get inspired.

But you will have to define who is participating of the wedding. It may be the bride’s parents, both sets of parents, the couple or who knows? Every family is different.

Related: Save Money on Your Wedding and Still Look Like a Million Bucks

Just make sure that if somebody other than you is forking the money for your big day, they get their say on the text before you place the order with the printer. Either that or forever hold their peace. 😉

6- A Perfect Wedding Invitation Demands a Perfect Envelope

Fortunately for couples getting married this year, you can choose a very simple card and an amazing envelope! Super trendy, more affordable and it would definitely be my choice.

Envelopes can make your invitation stand out like nothing else. The choices are endless. Envelopes can be square or rectangular, acrylic, see-through, with or without pockets, with or without lining. They can be ultra personalized with a seal or lined with a color or motif that complements your theme. A lined envelope will always grant that perfectly polished look to your perfect wedding invitation!

Tip: Choose the same font and ink color as the one used on the wedding invitations for a more coordinated and finished look.

Addressing envelopes is an arduous task, but you can simplify it by ordering pre-printed return address envelopes. Now, print your guest’s names and addresses on clear labels and you will have avoided having to write them one by one! Woohooo!!

7- To Calligraphy or Not To Calligraphy?

Calligraphy is a manual process and it will add to the cost of the wedding invitations. If you are crazy about the look but lack the time or the budget, you may choose a font that looks like calligraphy. Lamar Pen, Burgues Script, Hiyida, Dom Loves Mary, Shania, Hummingbird, Edwardian Script ITC, Malibu Script, are great examples of calligraphy fonts. Make sure to ask your printer if they carry the font. Or buy it and have your printer use it!

8- How To Estimate The Number of Wedding Invites

To know how many invitations you should order, just count:

• One invitation for each couple.
• Children under the age of 18 should be included in their parents’ wedding invitation. Zero invitations added here.
• Single guests get one invitation for them and their plus one. Unless this is a really formal occasion where you send an invitation to the plus one as well.

And finally, always but always, order at least 25 extra invitations to have them ready in case guests get added to the list at the last minute or if some invitation gets lost in the mail. Plus, you will want to have a couple as a keepsake. The cost of ordering 25 additional invites at the time of printing is much lower than reprinting only 25 wedding invitations.

Related: How Bilingual Wedding Invitations Can Keep You Out of Trouble (And Save You Money)

9- How Much is that Invitation in the Window?

Wedding invites can be extremely expensive. One would think that those little pieces of paper would be affordable. But nope. They are extremely personalized. So much so, they cannot be used for anybody else but you. There is no way to mass produce them unless you use a fill in the blanks card. So, get ready to setup a realistic invitation budget – especially if you are going for the highest priced items in the store.

Here are the variables to consider when choosing the perfect wedding invitation for your budget. The quantity ordered (although the price per each invite or invitation set will go down as the number of invitations increases), and its details, such as embellishments, specialty or high end paper, number of sides to be printed, special cuts and die-cuts, number of pieces, lined or unlined envelopes, boxes, tissue paper, ribbons, and more. Most printers will also assemble the invitations for you at an additional fee and only if they have ample time.

We recommend that you compare prices of several printers before making the final decision and do not leave out quality and trust.

Consider not only the price of the invitations per se but everything else the printer offers. Some of them will pre-print the return address on the envelopes at no cost to you, others include stamps (another invitation-related cost) or give you outer envelopes for free as well.

Last but not least, you may have to order a minimum number of invites and this may be different for different printers. So, divide the quoted price by the number of invitations and compare the cost per unit always considering the added perks to make the best decision.

10- Choosing the Printer

I cannot emphasize this enough. Invitations are personalized and that means you will have to work with the printer, a LOT! Pick a printer you feel comfortable working with.

A final tip to get your perfect wedding invitation, always ask for a “proof” before going to print. Even if you have to pay extra for it, do it. The “proof” is a .pdf file of your invitation in black and white. Check for proper layout, spelling mistakes, everything. It could spare you from a massive headache and expense!

If you want to personalize your wedding invitations ever further, think paper or wax seals. You may also use them to personalize your wedding favors! And remember to follow these 10 tips to choose your perfect wedding invitation!

Discover More Stunning Wedding Ideas

Photo Credits: weddingprecious, instagram, weddinginvitespaper, the knot, Brit Morin.