Order She Writes | Order She Wrote

As weddings and small gatherings start to creep back in to people’s calendars, or once upon a time you sent out a Save the Date, and everything paused since you may find it’s time to tackle your wedding invitations! Not something you know much about? No worries! Why should you? You’ll probably only be expected to do this once or twice in your life. I’ve got you. In this post, I am going to start to break down the many parts to a wedding invitation suite. Some are optional, all are pretty flexible. That way when it comes time to make decisions, you will have some clarity on what’s what. Often the parts of the wedding suite that you choose go hand in hand with sculpting the feel, the style, and the amount you wish to invest in to your beautiful paper goods.

Wedding Suite Components 101

The Invite Card - Gotta have this one.

The Invite Card in your wedding invitation suite is the main event, for both your calligrapher and for your intended guests. Filled with all the important information necessary for the big day, the invite card is the one you’re probably most familiar with. It’s the one you see in the movies when Katherine Hiegel’s ex is getting married.

You tell your guests who is getting hitched, when, and where they’re getting hitched. And you’re letting them know that they’re invited to the celebration! It’s the Who, What, When, and Where for the big day.

This card generally includes who is throwing the affair (whether it’s the parents, the kids, or everyone.) Some possible ways to word this part:

“Please join us to celebrate” - aka we don’t reeeally need to go in to details about who is the “host” of this wedding. We all put our money in in various ways, and that really isn’t very important to anyone or anyone’s parents, so let’s just keep it simple.
“Together with their families” - aka, our families are into this wedding! We are all helping to pay for this day and host the wedding, and we’re one big happy family who is welcoming you to the wedding.
“Mr. and Mrs. Stan Smith invite you to join in the celebration of their son/daughter” - aka parents of the bride/groom are the hosts of this wedding. And likely took on the lion's share of the cost.
“Mr. Stan Smith and Ms. Sara Williams and Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Kelly invite you to celebrate the marriage between their children” - aka both of our parents pretty much split this, and we want to give them their big shout out to thank them by name!

You also want to give the date and time of the wedding, and the venue for the ceremony, if it differs from the reception and cocktail hour. (You can include the reception info on another card or on your wedding website if you don’t do it on the main invite card.) I always advise including a “general” address for the venue as well. I say ‘general’ since (in my opinion) I don’t like a ton of numerals busying up the main card, and because let’s face it: nowadays, people can look it up. But it’s usually a good idea to call out the street name, city, and state so that they can confirm the venue they found is indeed the correct one for the wedding. (You’d be surprised how many venues across the country and world have the same or similar names!) If the venue is somewhere really specific or has a fun name that will give your guests a very specific place on a map, you may not need to add much else. Use your best judgment!

If you have a reception in a different location than the ceremony, some people like to include that detail on the card as well, something like “Reception to follow” at the bottom.

Any particular dress code for the wedding? You could add this as well.

Ahh—the return address on the back flap. An essential element to your invitations, and something that people often forget about. Wedding Invitations have a lot of parts to them, and there is no best way to design! But regardless of how you are addressing your invitations (be it a calligrapher or having them printed or even doing them yourself), you need to include a return address. And the return address can often add to costs, depending on how you are designing your invitations. But you’ve got options!

Some invitation makers, such as Zola or Minted will often include the cost of printing the return address on the back flap of the envelope. You may have a few options for how it’s printed, such as letterpress, foil, or engraved. In my opinion, letterpress and foil are your best use of value, since those are very pricey if you use a printer on your own. And they look gorgeous.

If you are designing your invitations with a stationer, printer, or calligrapher, we generally design the return address and include it in the proof, so that they can be printed directly on to the envelopes at the printer. This usually costs a little extra (priced per envelope) but to have your choice of simplicity, fonts, styles, or designs, this method can’t be beaten!

If you are using a calligrapher, printers usually insist that the return address gets printed onto the envelopes before giving them to a calligrapher. The reason being they would rather not be responsible for messing up any calligraphed envelopes. Be sure to have them print on extra envelopes since calligraphers always want a certain amount of spare envelopes!

Your calligrapher can also hand write the return address on the back. Speaking for myself, I don’t charge the same amount for the return address as I do for the front addresses. This is because I can go a little more quickly (far less room for error since it’s the same address over and over) I generally simplify the address itself (making it only 1-3 lines in length, and sometimes using abbreviations so that it’s very clear and easy for the postal workers to read, should they need to refer to it. Sometimes I am asked to write these in all caps or printed letters, so there is no confusion, or so the front address makes more of the impact. Either way, handwritten is always beautiful.

If you are looking to save a little bit of money on the overall cost of the invitations, I also recommend to clients to purchase a custom stamp! (I like to send people to Ink Me This. I can speak to her quality—they are crisp, lasting, easy to use, and there are a ton of styles and designs. Plus, I always like to encourage people to shop small!)

Custom stamps will cost less than $45, you will have it to keep forever (certainly kicks the look of your snail mail up a notch) and it’s helpful when it comes time to send out those Thank You notes. (I love making my clients custom Thank You notes, but I also love these ready-made ones!) The obvious downside is you’ll have to set your mind to a little bit of a DIY project, but if you’re trying to cut costs, custom stamps can help.

If you are using a stationer or calligrapher to design your invitations (need a list? Check The Knot for vendors in your city) they can design your stamp for you in their own writing! I love designing the stamps in my writing because they still tie in the calligraphy from the invitations, and offer a little something extra special and custom.