Photo Wedding Invitations, High School Announcements, Envelope Addressing

OK, so you spent hours at Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond to put that bridal registry together and you want to tell everyone to check it out.  After all, why did you put yourself through all that if it wasn’t to tell your guests what you want for gifts.  Bridal Registries are wonderful things and very helpful to your guests but they should never be part of the wedding invitation.  Once again, word of mouth is the best way to get the word out.  With the world of wedding websites being so popular – this is another great way to get the bridal registry to your guests.  You can say something like, “For more information about us and the wedding , please visit our website at WWW. . . .”. This way you have invited your guests to view all details about you and your wedding.  When they get to the website, they make the choice to look at your registry sites.   You have made it available to them but they make the ultimate choice to view it.  Once again, subtle and polite.

Weddings are expensive affairs and most invited guests who are able to attend will send a gift.  But remember, as the person doing the inviting you should never EXPECT a gift.  It is the ultimate choice of your guest.

Until next time . . .

Do you know the purpose for all those printed pieces in a wedding invitation?

Whenever I work with a wedding invitation customer, whether it is in person here in Minneapolis or with one of our online customers, I am always questioned about the need for all those pieces of stationery that go in the envelope with the invitation.  Today I am going to go over the basic pieces and will hopefully shed light on the confusion.

• The Invitation

This is the starting place.  The invitation’s purpose is to invite the guests to the event.  It should be the largest piece of the set and it gives the basic “who, what, when and where”.  It is usually inviting your guests to the wedding ceremony but there are cases where it could be inviting them to the reception. It often comes as a single “card”.  But is can also be a “folder” where it opens up without  any writing on the inside.

• The Envelopes and the Liner

Most often invitations will come with 2 envelopes, an inside envelope and an outside mailing envelope.  The liner is a colored insert that lines the inside envelope. It is a decorative piece that usually corresponds to the colors within the invitation design.

• The Reception Card

The reception card tells your guests the specifics concerning the reception.  From an etiquette standpoint it can be eliminated and the information is placed on the invitation if the location is the same as the ceremony.  If it is a different location, it should be on a different card.

• The Respond Set

This piece comes in 2 parts. The respond card comes with a preprinted return envelope that is returned to you with details of how many people will or will not be able to attend your wedding.  With appropriate wording it can also furnish information regarding your guests’ choice of entrée.  We have some great suggestions on how to get a better response with this card.

• Additional Enclosures

The other 2 optional pieces that are frequently enclosed in the wedding invitation are the Direction Card and the Accommodations Card.  The first gives your guests information on how to get to your wedding location and the other gives information about hotel options in the area.

These are the basic pieces to  a wedding invitation ensemble.  You have probably seen these pieces during your shopping or when you received an invitation in the mail, but now you will hopefully understand the individual purposes of each piece.

Stay tuned for future blogs where I will go into more depth regarding wording of these pieces of the invitation ensemble.  In the meantime, if you have a particular question be sure to contact me directly and I will gladly respond.

You have designed your wedding invitation exactly to your style and you have mailed them all out to family and friends.  Now begins the return of the response cards telling you who and how many are coming to your wedding event.  It is very exciting to get a flood of responses in your mailbox but what is even better is the flood of gifts.  All those wonderful gifts to celebrate your new life as husband and wife.

But, wait a minute!  Now also comes the time to respond with the gracious thank you note.  In one of my other blog posts I spoke about the task of writing thank you notes. Writing Thank You Notes.  Today, I am going to talk about the difference between the “Thank You Note” and the “Informal Note”.   If you have been shopping for wedding stationery, you have probably noticed these 2 terms for this piece of social stationery.

Informal Note

Both the Informal Note and the Thank You Note have writing on the front of the folded note but the Informal Note differs because of what is written on the front.  To put it simply, the Informal Note is personalized with your name or names. It is just like the sample shown here with Isabella and William Kennedy.  The inside of this note is left blank in order for you to write a personal note of thanks to the sender of your gift.

Thank You Note

The Thank You Note differs because it simply says Thank You on the front.  It is not personalized.  The inside can be blank or preprinted with the thank you verse.  Now before you go running off saying that your prayers have been answered and all your notes can be preprinted without a bit of effort from you be sure you understand how this works.  Or should I say, supposed to work.  In over 30 years of selling wedding invitations and Bar Mitzvah invitations I have found people who want to buy these preprinted thank you notes to save time.  Well, not so fast!  These preprinted notes were originally designed to act as an acknowledgment to the sender that you have received the gift and will be sending a hand written thank you shortly.   That’s right.  You still need to write that handwritten note.   The only reason you would send out these preprinted thank you notes is if you have received an overwhelming number of gifts or you are enjoying an extended honeymoon and your hand written thank yous will be delayed.

Now I want to share some thoughts with you about which piece of stationery is the best to buy.  You can probably guess that the Informal Note is my preference but I am going to give you some reasons that you might not have thought about.

By putting your names on the front you are making a statement as to how you want to be known after your wedding.  Brides, this is where you tell people you are taking the groom’s last name  – or not!  That goes for you grooms as well.  Yes, some grooms have chosen to reverse this tradition.  Not a lot but some.    In my example above, Isabella is taking William’s last name.  If she is not taking his name it could read “Isabella Johnson and William Kennedy”.  She could also say “Isabella and William” which simply means she may not have made up her mind on this subject or she just prefers a less formal style.

One other point in favor of the Informal Note is overall usage.  With a note that says “Thank You” on the front you will be unable to write anything but a thank you on the inside.  However, with the Informal Note, you can use it as your personal stationery and BOTH (yes, grooms can write notes too!) of you can use it to write any variety of messages.  That sounds like much more value to me.

Well that is the story of the Informal Note versus the Thank You Note.  Hopefully, you are now a little bit more informed about the difference and how each works.

One final thought for you.  Remember to write those thank you messages and do it in a timely manner.  Within 60 days of the wedding is acceptable. Don’t forget that your gift was sent by someone who took the time to choose and send your gift.  The least you can do is spend a little of your time responding with a gracious note.

Until next time – Happy Writing!

How many wedding invitations, bar mitzvah invitations, save the dates or even graduation invitations do I need to order is a question I am asked so many times.

When you are planning that special event you work on many different aspects for that special day.  Most often you are thinking of how many people will be coming.

How many dinners will I need for the caterer?  How large a wedding cake will I need?  How many party favors will I need?  So many of your details evolve around the number of people you are inviting.

The happy surprise for many event planning brides or bar mitzvah planning moms is that invitations are looking for the number of addresses and not people.  Unless everyone you know is single, the quantity of invitations needed is smaller than the number of people invited.

Since one of my objectives in my business of selling invitations is to get you the best for the least amount of money, I am always pleased to tell my customers that I will be saving them even more money by reducing the number of invitations they thought they needed.  Everybody loves to hear that they are not going to spend as much money as they originally thought.

So. . . when figuring the number of invitations you need to order, remember to count “mailboxes” instead of “noses”.  This is a common mistake.  My follow-up to a customer who says, for example,  they need 300 invitations is, “So, does that mean you are inviting 600 people?”  At which point many of my clients answer, “Oh no, just 300 people.”  Then the light bulb goes on and they are pleasantly surprised.  Happy Day!

Now that we have that figured out I need to give you a note of caution.  Don’t cut that number down too far.  To be as accurate as possible you should count those “mailboxes” and add 15 to it.  In other words, you should have 15 invitations that you don’t know what you will use them for.  It is your cushion.  If you do run out, the reorder is usually about 5 times more expensive because printers don’t give you the add on price for reorders.  You go back to the original price as if it was a totally new order.   Ouch!  Another costly mistake.  Be prepared and save.

Until next time. . .  Happy Ordering!

Remember!  Send me your concerns about invitations.  I’ll be happy to “address” your issues.

Hopefully writing thank you notes has been a habit we have learned since childhood.  It is the polite way of acknowledging someone’s kindness.

However, when we think of wedding gifts we can feel overwhelmed by the volume of notes required to acknowledge all those gifts or helpful assistance during those months of planning.  No need to fear.  Writing those notes can be a relatively simple task.  The hardest part is setting aside a little time to accomplish the task.

First, let get organized.  This will help to make the task a little easier.  As you receive your gifts be sure to document them.  Keep a list of your gifts.  This is not only helpful in writing thank you notes but it is also helpful when you see the gift giver at a later time or especially if they visit your home.  The list is simple.  Make three entries – -  who, when , what.    Who sent you the gift, when you received it, and what was it are the key components to your list.  Make sure you sufficiently describe the gift so that duplicates or similar items are credited to the correct gift giver.  Once you have these three pieces of information, your thank you notes practically write themselves.  For example:

Dear Aunt Trudy,

Thank you for the beautiful wedding gift you sent us.  Jack and I will enjoy using the elegant silver serving tray when we entertain for the holidays.  It was so kind of you to think of us.  I enjoyed meeting you at the wedding and we look forward to seeing you again soon.

Sincerely,

Mary

Short, sweet and simple.  Acknowledge the gift and reference how you both will use it.   If the gift is money, you can simple call it a “generous gift” and again briefly reference how it will be used.

Ladies, in my above example please note that Jack can also write some of those notes.  Grooms are not exempt from the task but timing is important so the notes should be written by whomever can get the job done in a timely manner.  The appropriate timing is within 2 months of return from the honeymoon.

One last helpful hint. . .  Once you have written those notes, don’t discard that list.

It comes in very handy when the gift giver visits your home.  Not only will you get extra points with the new relatives but you will avoid possible embarrassing moments by subtly displaying the gift when they visit.  Don’t worry. . .  you can put the metal squirrel nut cracker back in the closet after they leave.  I know I did.

Happy note writing ‘til next time.