When deciding which invitations are best for your wedding, remember that that they need to reflect what type of wedding of you are having. Whether it be a formal, black tie wedding or a beach party, your invitations should reveal to your guests the tone or atmosphere of the wedding. The invitations themselves come in several pieces: the mailing envelope, an inner envelope to protect the invitation, a card that tells where the reception is (if different from the location of the ceremony), and a response card that comes with a self addressed stamped envelope. Some also include maps and information on the locations to aide the guests.

If you are looking for traditional invitations, you’ll find that these are heavy and made from cotton or linen paper either in white or ecru. They are engraved to add elegance with either black or charcoal ink and come with a piece of tissue paper inside to protect the engraving. However, many couples are moving away from traditional invitations and using different colors (typically to match the color scheme of the wedding) or papers that come in unusual sizes. They will use exotic textures to complement the overall tone of the wedding or emblazon the invitations with different graphics, monograms or even family crests. Some brides are even choosing to discard the inner, unsealed envelope because they think it is wasteful.

After you have picked out your invitations, order them about three to four months before the wedding date. If you can order them sooner, do so because them you will have more time to edit and proof read them, make changes and address the mailing envelope. If you are having the outsides addressed by a calligrapher, give your self even more time because they can take up to two weeks to address 100 invitations.

After the invitations are addressed, send them at least six weeks before the wedding date, but do it at 8 weeks if you have the time so your guests can have proper notification. If you have guests coming from abroad, send their invitations at least 10 weeks before the date. However, if you have previously sent out save-the-date-cards (to learn more, see section about these cards), then you have a little more time to send out the invitations. Also, make sure the response cards inform the guests that they should be received at least two to three weeks before the wedding.