Credit: Invitation Stationery
One of the most exciting parts of planning your wedding day is the opportunity to show off your own unique style to your guests. This style all begins with your wedding invitations. These little works of art can really begin to tell a story about what your guests can expect when they join you and your fiancé on your wedding day.
Many elements of your invitation style can be incorporated into your wedding day look – think colours, fabric textures, embellishments and monograms. You will find many wonderful invitation designers that can help you to refine your individual invitation style however many couples enjoy the chance to get in touch with their creative side and embark on the process of designing and producing their own wedding invitations.
Your DIY invitations can be as basic as finding a template online, adding your own wedding day details and hitting print or they can be much more detailed and crafty, leaving your friends and family wondering where all the creative inspiration came from.
The biggest question I get asked as a wedding planner when it comes to DIY wedding invitations is “how do I make them look professional?” Here are a few considerations for making your one of a kind masterpieces.
Know your style
You need to sit down with your fiancé and chat about how you envisage your wedding day looking – from both a style and atmosphere perspective. If you are planning a very formal affair then your invitations may suit a bit of bling to set the tone of glitz and glamour for your guests. If you are planning something a little more rustic then your colours and fabrics may head down a more natural feel.
This is also a good time to think about the wedding budget. Consider the size you are wanting your invitations – 5×7” is a standard size and you will find many envelopes to fit this option. The inclusion of RSVP cards will add cost to you invites; additional card, printing, embellishments and postage. To keep the costs down you may prefer to set up and email account for your wedding for guests to RSVP or a wedding website for guests to seek further information.
Get some professional advice before you start
Not only will you learn a few tricks of the trade, you will hear about ways to make your hard earned money go a bit further. It’s not just the cost of paper and printing you need to consider, it’s the ribbon, pocket folds, fabric, envelopes, embellishments and postage that can all add up quickly. The Drawing Room stock everything you will need to make your beautiful invitations and have lots of designs you can look at in store and online. Better still if you decide you are going to need help with certain aspects of your invitations, for example printing, they will be able to help you on your way.
Credit: Invitation Stationery
The paper of professionals
Professionals use a heavier card stock than standard printer paper and this gives the finished invitations a much more professional look. The range of card stock available both in store and online is huge and is really only limited by your imagination (or credit card limit!). If you are planning to print the invitations on your home printer be sure to check the card doesn’t jam before purchasing large quantities.
Now is the time you can start adding a bit of colour if you desire. If your overall design is more neutral in colour then you can be pretty bold with your paper colour. If the invitation design is busy or colourful you may want to stick with creams or whites for printed cards and add a coloured, textured or patterned card for added detail. The texture of the backing card can really add a bit of style – think metallics, corrugated card or rustic recycled papers.
Font
When choosing your font or fonts you can really bring your personality into the invitation and use it to tie together other graphics that will be part of the design. By searching free fonts online you will see that you really can go wild….rustic, vintage, romantic, script, handwritten; the list is endless.
Try to keep to just two fonts if you can and make sure they are easy to read when re-sized for your invitation as a laptop or tablet screen can be deceiving. Your names should really stand out using a creative font but keep the details easier to read with more uniform look font.
Trim to size
Purchasing card stock that is already cut to invitation size can be very expensive. Instead choose an invitation size, for example 5×7” so you can get two invitations from one sheet of A4 paper. By setting your design up with a small bleed you can trim the card to size and have your design fill up the full space in the invite without any white space around the edges – this will give a much more professional look.
Searching Pinterest will uncover a whole world of free downloadable design templates that may also suit your style and many of these are DIY focussed so are set up to print more than one invitation per sheet.
Whatever size you choose, remember to make sure that you can purchase envelopes to suit your invitation style or you could even consider making your own envelopes if you go with a non-standard size.
The devil is in the detail
Regardless if you have an eye for detail or not, you will need to check and re-check all your invitation detail before printing. Once you think it is perfect you may also like to send it to a couple of trusted friends or family members to cast their eye over and check that you are not missing any important details. There would be nothing worse than hitting print only to realise you have the wedding date wrong on all your invitations!
