Designing and creating wedding invitations and other wedding stationery yourself may at first seem like a fun challenge and creative exercise. If you aren’t properly prepared it can quickly seem overwhelming leaving you to hurriedly order pre-made invitations and try to get them mailed on time. With the right supplies and inspiration, creating your own wedding invitations can be lots of fun and very rewarding. Here is a basic guide of what you need to make gorgeous/quirky/fun/romantic invitations that are so you!
Make the Guest List
This is the first thing you should do when planning a wedding. Booking a venue that only sits 75 people is a bad idea before your guests list because if your parents are coming your quaint and intimate wedding may turn in to a full blown party that half the town is invited to attend. You want a general number so you know about how many invitations you will need to make. This may also help determine how much work you want to do for each invitation created. Hand tying little bows on every invitation is a great idea until you have tied 200 of them with another 100 to go!
Choose a Style
Do you want folio invitations with pockets? Considering invitations that bloom? Maybe you want the base of the invitation to be a simple sheet of cardstock and layer the invitation itself in a complementary color. Choosing a basic style can help you figure out the other pieces you need to help your invitations come together.
Choose Your Colors
Are your wedding colors purple and yellow? Then maybe you want wedding invitations printed on yellow linen cardstock with a border of amethyst. Specific colors may limit the paper options and finishes that are available so you will want to choose those before getting your heart set on one particular style of paper.
After choosing the cardstocks and any pocket folios or bloom folios, you will want to decide on any embellishments for the invitations. Maybe you want to tie each invitation with ribbon. Maybe you want to glue a butterfly on every invitation or cut a design on the edges of the paper.
Choose Your Invitation Wording
You want to be sure that the desired wording of your invitations will fit on the design you have chosen before you purchase all of the supplies. Use plain paper to make a proof so you can see what size fonts you will be able to use and find a spacing that works.
Gather Your Supplies
When you have made your decisions, it is time to gather your assembly supplies. Some supplies you may want on hand include;
- Scissors for cutting paper – you can also get craft scissors that leave a scalloped or other decorative edge on the paper.
- Adhesive – double sided tape, glue sticks, glue dots or whatever your adhesive of choice is to combine any layers you have chosen for your wedding invitations.
- Computer and printer – Unless you are a whiz with calligraphy you will probably be printing the wording of the invitations onto the cardstock.
- Embellishments – gather the ribbons, glitter, decals and stickers you are using to create your wedding invitations
Create Templates
After you have played around with sizes and created the perfect wedding invitation, use the pieces to create templates. Always work from the template to cut new pieces of the invitation. Small variations in subsequent cuts can quickly grow, becoming noticeable. Create all the individual pieces of the invitations first and then assemble them all at once. You will get into a flow and it will save you time. Plus once the pieces are created you can enlist some help for the assembly.
Creating your own invitations doesn’t have to be daunting. You can let your creativity shine without making yourself a ton of frustrating work or breaking the budget on supplies and on doing things over and over. A little planning, preparation and a few trials can make creating your own wedding invitations a breeze.
