What You Need to Know Before Shopping for Your Wedding Invitations
Category: All About Wedding Invitations, Beyond Wedding Invitations | Published on: Nov 04, 2016
If you’re a paper lover, you probably can’t wait to get started ordering your invitations. But jumping into the world of wedding stationery can be extremely overwhelming. Here’s what you’ll need to know before you start seriously shopping for wedding invites!
Set a wedding stationery budget
Before you start looking and getting excited about all the wonderful invitation options out there, you’d better know what kind of budget you’re working with.
Invitations can range from $3.00 for the most basic invite sets to super luxury $30.00 per invite. Creating a budget should be one of the first things you do. Don’t forget to account for your stationery when you budget.
For help figuring out your stationery budget, check out my post on how much wedding invitations cost.
How many invitations do you need?
Part of making your budget is knowing how many of each set you’ll need. Remember that this isn’t the same as your guest list; couples and families that live together only need one invite.
I recommend you organize your guest list in a spreadsheet and keep your guests grouped by their mailing address. This way you can easily count how many invitations ( save the dates, and thank you cards, etc…) you’ll need.
Be sure to include a few extras. A good rule of thumb is an extra 5 invitations per 50 invitations you need.
Plus, this guest list and spreadsheet will come in handy if you’re having your stationer or calligrapher address the envelopes for you. If you’d like more info, here’s my blog post on digital addressing.
Find your wedding invitation inspiration
Speaking of wonderful invitation options, you’ll also want to do your research. Find out what kind of style you want, the colors, the fonts, and any other extras you want. Make sure to refer to your budget as you’re looking!
Instagram, Pinterest, Etsy and Google are good places to look, and Pinterest is a great way to organize what you find. Make a board and pin any inspiration images to it. Be sure to include all the information in your pins so that you can go back and order them from the original designer.
Don’t get too carried away, though. There’s hundreds of designers and thousands (maybe millions) of invitation designs available out there. Set a limit on how many ideas you can pin, and don’t be afraid to delete pins as you narrow down to your favorites.
Even if you are planning to do custom design, you only need a handful of inspiration images for your designer. Just like clothes shopping, you can’t take the whole store home with you.
If you want a truly original invitation, be sure to look at non-wedding images. Find fabrics, textures, and materials that you connect with to pin.
Now you’re ready to order your wedding invitations!
— Ashleigh
See more posts about: budget, checklist, guest list, inspiration, need to know, quantity, shopping list
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