How to Design the Perfect Wedding Invitation

Your wedding venue is booked, your caterer chosen, your guest list finalised: it’s finally time to send out the wedding invitations!

Designing your own wedding invitations might seem like an overwhelming task, and it’s certainly an important one - but it doesn’t have to be difficult or stressful. In fact, with Bride and Groom Direct, it’s positively easy to create the perfect wedding invitation design.

We have a vast range of completely customisable wedding invitation designs to choose from, to suit every wedding theme from vintage to contemporary. Just follow these 9 simple steps to create and order your dream wedding invitations in minutes.

1. Choose a Wedding Invitation Template

The first step to creating the perfect wedding invitation is to browse from our wonderful array of templates. We currently have over 300 designs available to choose from, and we’re adding more all the time.

Using the options to the left of the page, you can filter our templates by colour scheme, format (flat, folded, or pocket), and theme. For example, if you’re having an outdoorsy, woodland wedding, you might wish to browse our rustic or flower-themed designs in a natural shade of green or brown. 

You can also sort by price, if you have a particular budget in mind. Designs at a higher price point may feature embellishments such as ribbons, buckles or gems.

2. Add Your Wedding Details

When you’ve decided on a wedding invitation template, click “Buy Now & Start Personalising”. This will take you through to the template editor, where you’ll be able to quickly and easily customise your wedding invitations!

The first thing you’ll be asked to do is to input all of the details about your wedding. This includes:

● Bride’s/first partner’s information (first, middle and last names)
● Groom’s/second partner’s information (first, middle and last names)
● Parents’/hosts’ information
● Ceremony details (date, time, venue name and address)
● Reception details (venue name and address)
● RSVP address and deadline (not all templates will have this option, depending on size. You may have to order a separate reply card, which we’ll touch on shortly)

You’ll be able to add and change these details later, so don’t worry if you forget anything or misspell something at this stage.

3. Choose the Perfect Wording

Now that you’ve added all of your details, it’s time to choose how your wedding invitations should be worded.
At the template editor’s wording selection screen, you’ll be able to choose between a number of pre-written wording options, ranging from traditional and formal to informal/casual.

For example, one of our more formal wording options reads as followed:

Mrs. (Bride’s Mother)
and
Mr. (Bride’s Father)
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
____
and
____
on ____
at ____
followed by a reception at ___

Here’s an example of a slightly more modern wording choice:

___
and
____

would like to invite you to their wedding
at ____
on ____

followed by a reception at ____

With so many options to choose from, you’re bound to find a wording style that suits the tone of your wedding. However, if none of the presets are speaking to you, feel free to write your own from scratch by selecting the “custom” option.

4. Customise the Typeface and Colour Scheme

The next screen will show you a preview of your wording choice, and how it will look with the information you entered at the beginning. Here, you’ll be able to edit the wording and add and change information as necessary.

On this screen, you can also play with the typeface (font) and colour options, to further customise your wedding invitation design. There are no hard-and-fast rules here: simply ensure that the text is legible against the background colour. You’re also free to increase or decrease the size of the text to your liking.

Ideally, you choose a font colour that matches your wedding’s colour scheme. Your guests will use this to plan their outfits. For example, if your wedding invitation heavily features the colour red, your guests will avoid wearing red so as not to clash with your bridesmaids.

5. Decide If You’ll Need a Note Card

It’s not always possible to fit everything that you need to say onto the wedding invitation itself. This can be a particular issue with flat (unfolded) wedding invitations, as there’s less surface area on which to include information for your guests.

If you find that you don’t have enough room on your chosen invite design for vital details, why not order some note cards? These are small inserts that you can use to give your guests additional information, such as wedding breakfast meal options or directions to the venue. All of our designs are made to match our invitations, and are of course completely customisable.

6. Add a Link to Your Wedding Website

If you have a wedding website, don’t forget to include a link to it on your wedding invitation or note card.
It’s quick and easy to set up a wedding website, using a service such as Wix or Squarespace. Wedding websites are perfect for communicating helpful information to your guests that you can’t fit onto the wedding invitation or note card. This might include detailed directions to your venue, information on local hotels and car parks, for example.

The wedding website is also a great place to include a link to your gift registry. Traditional wedding etiquette states that you shouldn’t mention gifts anywhere on the paper wedding invitation.

7. Choose a Matching RSVP Card

Your recipients will need some way of replying to your wedding invitation! The traditional way for wedding guests to RSVP is by filling out a reply card.

This is a separate piece of stationery that you send out in the same envelope as the wedding invitation. There’s space for your guests to write their name(s), indicate whether they will or will not attend, and inform you of their meal choice and/or any dietary requirements.

At Bride and Groom Direct, we offer matching reply cards for most of our wedding invitation templates. But if you’d rather go digital, you can include your e-mail address or phone number instead - or add a reply form for your guests to fill out on your wedding website.

8. Order More Invitations Than You Think You’ll Need

It’s a good idea to compile your wedding guest list before purchasing your invitations, so that you know how many to order. Guests that live at the same address (for example, families and cohabiting couples) will only need one invitation between them. The same goes for guests that will be permitted to bring a “plus one”.

It’s always better to order too many wedding invitations than not enough. When you have your final number, add at least 10% to it. For example, if you think you need 150 invitations, you should order at least 165.

This is an important failsafe. In the event that you inadvertently ruin an invitation (for example, by misspelling a guest’s name, or spilling tea on it), you’ll have plenty of spares. Having extra invitations will also allow for “wiggle room”, just in case you realise you’ve left someone off of the guest list!

9. Hand-Write Your Invitees’ Names

Once printed and dispatched, your wedding invitations should arrive within 48 hours via courier. The only thing left to do is to double-check that there are no typographical or printing errors, hand-write your invitees’ names, stamp and address the envelopes (which are provided free with your order), and send them off! Why not customise the outside of your wedding invitations with one of our fun envelope seals?

Traditionally, wedding invitations should be sent out 6 to 8 weeks before the date of your wedding. However, if you haven’t sent prior ‘save the dates’, you should post your invitations much earlier (around 3-6 months before the big day). Don’t forget to give your guests extra notice if they will need to travel for your wedding.