Wedding Etiquette
When it comes to wedding invitation etiquette some books suggest that your guests should receive their invitations approximately 6-8 weeks prior to the wedding date. This depends though. For example if a lot of people have to travel quite a distance, they may need more time to take a day or two (or more) off from work and to try to get a good deal on transportation such as airplane tickets. So it is good to consider these types of things and put yourself in the shoes of your guests.
Although it may be against proper wedding invitation etiquette these days a lot of people send out a couple of 'rounds' of invites, especially if their wedding venue has limited space. The first batch would be to family and close friends (people you absolutely must and want to invite) and after receiving the responses from these guests you have extra space in your venue you can send out another 'round' of invitations. Make sure to keep track of who you have sent invitations to and not and who has responded and what the response was. Also, do your best to ensure that the same groups of people are receiving your wedding invitations at the same time. This ensures that people do not feel left out or know they were invited on a second or third rounds of invitations.
Follow up
If the guests you invited to your wedding have not responded, or their response was not complete, by the time you noted in the invitation it is time to start hitting the phones and call them to gather their responses and details. Knowing your number of guests is important as it impacts quantities of food, chairs, table seating arrangements etc.
What to include in your wedding invitation
There are different amounts of information that you can choose to include in your invitation. Include as much as needed for people to be able to make a decision as to whether or not to make it, so time and location are essential. However, the more detail you include the more inserts you will need to have in your wedding invitation as there is only so much space, especially if you want to lay out the text and graphics of your wedding invitation in a nice, spacious and elegant way.
So here are a few pieces of information that are commonly included in a wedding invitation:
- First; who is getting married and often the bride and grooms's parents names are included ("Together with 'brides mother and father' and 'brides mother and father', 'bride' and 'groom' invites to you share in the festivities of their marriage(")
- Date of wedding – write this out in letters as oppose to using letters (so "First of April, two thousand eight" as oppose to "April 1, 2008)
- Location of ceremony
- Time of ceremony – again, write this out in letters on the wedding invitation
- Time and place of reception – same things applies here regarding using letters as oppose to numbers
- Dress code
- Information on where the bride and groom have their wedding registry
- How to RSVP and by when – normally a card is included where the guest can respond to say who will be attending and what their meal selection is but you can also give people the alternative to respond via email or phone (include those details if applicable)
- Envelope (with postage) to send back RSVP card to you with their response to the wedding invitation
Optional inserts:
- Maps and directions
- Details regarding transportation (if there is any)
- Hotel information; number to call to make reservations, also note if guests receive a discounted rate and to mention the name of the wedding party in order to get it. Also give the timeline for the discounted rate
- It is a good idea to give people a chance to let you know about any food allergies they might have, on their RSVP card where they make their meal selection
