Getting married is one of the most magical days you’d have as it’s a day you’re filled with love and romance. However, you need to prepare many things to ensure everything will turn as expected. Apart from your suppliers and vendors, you need to focus on your wedding invitations since they’ll be the first thing your guests will receive.
Preparing Wedding Invitations
Your wedding invitation is an essential part of your wedding as you send this to your guests and allow them to expect what your wedding will be like. Apart from the design itself, there are wedding invitation guidelines you need to follow. You can look at this site and have a guide about the proper wording, which you can use if you’re having a Jewish wedding.
Moreover, listed below are the standard wedding invitation etiquette you should follow for a stress-free wedding:
1. Note If Children Aren’t Allowed
If you’re hosting an all-adult wedding and you’d like to avoid having kids during your wedding, you should include it in your invitations to prevent your guests from bringing their children with them.
When you invite people to your wedding who has kids, they can automatically assume children are allowed to tag along with them. However, if you have a specific rule, you should include it on the invitation so parents can arrange for a babysitter who’d look after their young while they’re attending your wedding.
To avoid any conflicts, you could inform your guests about your rule right away as they’d appreciate you getting in touch with them first before you send out their invitation.
2. Include How Many Guests They Could Bring
Believe it or not, some people may tend to bring more guests than you expect them to be because you didn’t indicate it on your wedding invitation. As you send out your invitations to your guests, you should include how many people they could bring with them. In this way, you can control the guests’ flow and avoid any issues about the seating chart on the wedding day itself.
To allow you to be more organized with your seating arrangements, you should include in your RSVP a blank space where your guest can write who’ll be their plus one, so you can create a place card for the other guest as well.
If you’re anticipating guests to bring more than what you’ve indicated, you can write a note on their RSVP about how much you’d like to invite more guest, but you only have a limited seating capacity and you’d like to make the wedding more intimate as much as possible.
With proper notes, you can have a successful and stress-free wedding you’ll surely enjoy.
3. Include A Wedding Road Map
Wherever you’re hosting your wedding, you should include a map of where the event would take place. In this way, you can prevent people from getting lost. It’d be a shame if your guests are late just because they have trouble getting to your area, so cut everyone’s worries by including a clear road map of the wedding’s location.
As you create your road map, you should include essential landmarks they can see while on the road, making them navigate easier. If you’d like to update your map, you could create a QR code that your guests could scan, and it should lead them to a Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation app where it’ll direct them to the exact pin of your location.
If you have a different place for your wedding ceremony and reception, you should include both addresses on the invitation to give people a clear direction where they should head next.
4. Outline Time And Date
You don’t want people to get confused when your wedding takes place, so include the time and date of your wedding day clearly on your invitations.
Ideally, you should advance the time to at least 30 minutes before you walk down the aisle to allow everyone ample amount of time to take their proper seating at the venue and to avoid hurrying.
Along with this, you can also prevent people from getting late, especially nobody could anticipate traffic or an emergency on your wedding day.
Ideally, you could also include your wedding day’s end time to organize their transport in getting home safely. This is also a great way to manage their time if they have prior commitments after your wedding day.
5. Indicate Dress Code
At a wedding, guests might be confused with what they need to wear because they tend to fear coming to your venue overdressed or underdressed. You need to set your guests’ expectations about your wedding from the very beginning of your invitation.
To allow your guests to dress properly, you should indicate the dress code for your wedding. Will you be having a semi-formal or formal wedding? Apart from telling those, you could also indicate if you require any specific attire. It could be an all-black-tie party with a floor-length dress.
If you need a particular color scheme, you should write it as well to make sure your guests have a clear view of what is expected of them, allowing them to prepare ahead of time.
6. Include Requests On RSVP
With your guests, you can never identify if they’ll have an allergic reaction to the food you’ll serve. To prevent any medical issues on your wedding day, you should leave a space for your guests to write down any allergies they have. In this way, you can note their request and have an arrangement with your caterer.
If you’re allowing your guests to have a specific food request on your such as allowing them to choose between three options, you should indicate a strict deadline about sending back their invitations, so you can inform your caterer right away about the headcount for the meals.
Conclusion
Planning for your wedding invitations is more meticulous than you think. Ideally, you should write down as much information as possible to prevent receiving basic questions from your guests. In this way, they’d know all details they need without contacting you during your busy day.
Above all, you should send out your invitations as early as possible to have a proper estimate of your attending guests.
