Planning any big event, especially a wedding, it can feel as if there is so much to do! Whether you have started months ahead or are pulling off a last-minute, low-key celebration, use the benefit of my experience to help ensure everything is as beautiful as you want your day to be.

Your Wedding Stationery checklist

Let’s start with a list of everything you might want! A wedding all seems to start officially when those invitations or ‘Save the date’ cards wing their way to your friends and family, and everyone gets their first taste of what’s in store for your (and their) very special day… (Yes, you could send everyone a WhatsApp or email but is that the tone you want to set for your wedding?)

Here are some of the stationery items you may want to consider:

· Save the date cards and/or

· Wedding invitations, maps etc

· Evening invites

· RSVP cards

Then for on the day:

· Orders of Service

· Menus

· Place cards

· Signage to venues

· Favours for guests

· Guest book or photo mount for guests to sign.

· Personalised coasters /and ice breaker quiz to get guests talking to each other

And finally afterwards – Thank you cards for your guests.

It’s important that the design and execution of your stationery matches your vision for your big day.

The Print Lady is available for online consultations to discuss your ideas and get an idea of the costs involved. I love to bring a wedding suite together that really reflects the personality and relationship of the couple in question.

Picking your theme

When you are starting to think about stationery you probably already have the venue confirmed – which is probably one of the biggest expenses of your day – do you want your stationery to reinforce your choice with a hand drawn venue illustration? Or would you rather have something more personal to you and the history and evolution of your relationship? Are you getting married abroad and having a reception back home for friends and family? Would a travel theme – passport style invitation and boarding pass/ticket fit?

The possibilities are endless – it’s a great idea to have a look around and start a pin board of ideas that you like and have a colour scheme in mind. Some couples have a floral stationery theme that is then carried on throughout the day in the bouquet and table centre pieces?

Taking a little time to let your imagination run wild, get your plans in place and have your wedding style and personality summed up means that you will not only have some wedding stationery to get excited about, your invitations will create an anticipation of what your day will hold for you and your guests as you create your dream celebration.

A note about the Invitation

For your guests, until the big day, the main event is their wedding invitation. You’ll need to include date, times, venue and any special instructions of course. If there is a separate reception venue you’ll need to include that too. If it’s a tricky place to get to, a map might be useful. If you’re expecting guests to stay over after the wedding, a list of recommended hotels to suit all budgets could help. Then you might want to include details of your wedding list too - or at least a note about wedding gifts generally.

Budgeting

Every wedding is individual and no one size fits all – people have different priorities – some go all out on the actual invitation and have very minimal on the day stationery – depending on the style of the reception.

Traditionally the stationery budget used to be about 10% of the total spend, to cover all the invites/rsvp’s – day stationery and welcome signage – signs for the reception – but we can work on that to make it fit for you. Recent figures from hitched.co.uk say about 3 – 6 % is now the average – for perspective. – I don’t have a set price list for wedding stationery for this reason . If you want full out letterpress, heavy cotton card and foil blocking you are going to be closer to the 10% mark – but the options for textured and coloured digital stock mean you can still achieve some stunning results for the lower end of that budget.

Timings

Some rough timing guides for your stationery:

Save the dates are usually sent out 6 – 12 months before the wedding – 12 months if you are expecting guests to travel abroad and use holiday allowances etc. and are usually only to the guests attending the whole wedding day.

Invitations to the main wedding if no save the dates have been sent out 6 months before. If save the dates have been sent then a formal invitation 8 – 10 weeks before the wedding with all the additional information for guests to make travel/accommodation arrangements.

Evening reception guests don’t need a save the date – but should have a separate evening invite to be clear about what they are invited to and time to arrive.

If you are going to have a wedding website for RSVP and gift list etc it’s a good idea to start that 10 12 months before.

8 – 10 months before finalise the guest list.

4 - 6 months before order invitations and rsvp

2 – 3 months before the wedding get invites sent – consider the day stationery.

Order of service/Order of the day, Menu/Place cards and signage for the day should be ordered ideally

4 - 6 weeks before the wedding – final seating plans/place cards no later than 2 – 3 weeks before.

1 – 2 months after the wedding – thank you cards to guests who attended.

Planning a wedding? Better call the Print Lady…

If wedding stationery that’s unique to you sounds good, then you can rely on a fabulous result and plenty of excellent wedding print advice from me, the Print Lady and our creative services team.

Get in touch to find more – or browse our wedding gallery to stimulate your creative ideas!

If some insight into commonly used printers jargon would be useful, try this.

Your guide to beautiful wedding stationery