Let them know early
Most weddings are now planned a year or more in advance,
meaning that couples have plenty of time to make their proposed guests aware of
the date. This should of course be done
through a save the date card and there is no reason not to send them out as
soon as you have booked your venue and know the date of the wedding. Although anything more than about 18 months
in advance is perhaps going a little overboard and you run the risk that people
will forget the date of the wedding in the meantime.
Save the date cards can be especially important if you are
planning a summer wedding; when people are more likely to be looking at booking
their holidays. Of course, if you are planning
a wedding at short notice, you should skip this bit of stationery and move on
to the wedding invitations.
The formal invitation
There is no exact science as to how close to your wedding
day you should send out your invitations.
Some will advise that four months is about right, whilst others suggest
as little as six weeks. Where save the
date cards have already been sent out you can be a little more relaxed about
things. What is important is that you write
all of your invites and then send them at the same time. Otherwise you run the risk of friends and family
members who have received their invite, talking to those who haven’t. This can of course have the potential to
cause a misunderstanding and leave people questioning why they haven’t been
invited, even though it is simply that you haven’t got round to writing their
invitation yet!
Showing your appreciation
In order to say thank you to your guests for attending your
special and for any gifts and cards that they may have given you; there are two
pieces of stationery that can be used. The
first are wedding favour boxes, which should be filled with a token gift to
show your appreciation. Wedding favours
tend to be positioned at every place on the dining tables, so that guests find
them as they are seated for their meal.
Taking this approach has the benefit of providing something for guests
that do not already know each other to talk about – acting as a bit of an
icebreaker. Alternatively you can choose
to hand them out to guests as you greet them at the entrance to the dining
room.
The second item of
stationery you can use to show your gratitude is of course the thank you card,
which provides you the opportunity to reach those that only attended the evening
celebration, as well as those that were also at the ceremony. Whilst
your guests will appreciate that you are busy with your honeymoon right after
the wedding; do not put your thank you cards off for too long. Accepted etiquette suggests that thank you
cards should be received no later than 6 weeks after the wedding day. As with your wedding invitations, you should
write a few cards at a time to break up the task, but ensure they are all sent
at the same time to avoid upsetting anyone.
This post was written
by Mike Smith at Bespoke Wedding Stationers Paper Themes.