Wedding Invitations

Themed Wedding Invitations

Several centuries ago, the weddings were grand events celebrated mostly by the members of nobility or royal houses. These people were also responsible for making the custom of sending the wedding invitations so popular, especially in the private circles of the English and French aristocracies. The rest of the lower class population was too poor and uneducated to occupy its time with such methods of entertainment so when they had to celebrate a wedding the invitations were mostly verbalized, issued out loud or the news was announced among family members.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, when this custom reached the shores of the United States of America, the country of social equality, the wedding invitations were the primary form to announce a wedding day no matter the social rank; if people were still too poor to buy and send them to their guests they had the option of making the wedding announcement in a local or national newspaper.

The theme weddings have become increasingly popular over the last years especially because not all couples could afford organizing the wedding in an exotic location of the world so they have to compensate somehow by planning a special wedding at home.

The pattern design and theme of the wedding invitations depend very much on the selected theme of the wedding so you have multiple choices of wedding reception and ceremony invitations from which to select a just the perfect one for your wedding.

The simple and classic white wedding invitation cards were replaced by the themed and colorful wedding invitations making even the activity of announcing a wedding, special.

Thermography is the cheapest method of printing an invitation and its expensive and elegant alternative is the hand written text with an intricate calligraphy style.

The wedding invitations can have different sizes or shapes and they come in a wide variety of color combination and patterns, especially after the invention of printing techniques such as thermography.

Because the wedding invitations have their long history, a strong wording etiquette had soon emerged demanding the use of a formal language to address those invitations to guests and by offering some wording examples for the invitations.

The strict formal wording has its modern alternative in using an informal and non-traditional language, sometimes funny and humorous and other times by adding some favorite quotes and verses or expressing in simple words the feelings of love and happiness on such a blissful day.

The wording can also match with the theme selected for the wedding invitations and the information about the wedding ceremony and reception can be mentioned on the same invitation card or on separate ones. On the wedding ceremony invitation card you should find the names of the bride and groom, the names of the wedding hosts, usually being the bride’s parents or both families of the couple, the location and address of the wedding ceremony, the time and date of that ceremony.

You can also add information about the reception such as mentioning the fact that it will immediately take place after the ceremony, mention the location of the reception or after party and the address, the time and date if it is needed, the theme of the wedding and a quick suggestion about how your guests should dress up for such an event, even though it is preferably not to tell them what to wear and if the reception is adult only.

Always add an RSVP if you find the attendance response necessary for the planning of the wedding or replace it with the expression “Regrets only” if you are expecting only for the non-attendance responses. The RSVP can be added on the wedding invitation card in the form of a phone number for contact or written on a separate card with a return address in a specified period of time.

It is the couple’s personal decision whether to mention the names of their parents or wedding hosts on the invitations; sometimes their families make a small financial contribution to the whole organizing of the wedding or the couple decides to pay for their own wedding.

It is better to read again the text written on the invitations before sealing them in their single or the classical double envelopes, to spot any language mistakes or wrong uses of honorifics or addressing forms. Make sure to mail out the theme wedding invitations with minimum six or eight weeks in advance before the planned wedding day, especially if you are expecting the attendance replies.