Memorize this one line I’ve used for a decade now, “For every dollar you save in invitations, you’ll sacrifice $5 in gifts.”  I know you’re not allowed to think like that, but seriously, if you spent $100 on invitations because “that’s all [you] could afford,” guess how much your average gift would be?  $10 probably.  Now if you spent $800 on those same people, your average gift would go up to $50 apiece. 

These were my wedding invitations:

Those were casual, with butterflies, two different fonts, a vellum cover and periwinkle ink.  Yet they were gorgeous.  And because of doing casual right, we got hundreds of gifts that cost a good amount apiece.  Again, I know that’s not why you’re getting married and how dare I see your grandmother as a number.  But for those of you who have nothing, the most of you who are getting married young and actually need a microwave, don’t sell yourself short by making your invitations look cheap.

The difference in what you’d order and what the Queen of England would order for wedding invitations isn’t visible.  It’s in the type of printing, the quality of paper—all sorts of variables I could write books about.  But it’s not anything your mother’s friends can tell from 3 feet away.  For that matter it’s not anything the Queen of England can tell from 3 feet away.  It consists entirely of traditional things you have to be trained to see…

Please respond below with your questions or comments.

1. First off, if you’re going to have a de facto anti-kids event, you need to have other events with kids.  That’s just polite.
2. Hire a babysitter for another part of the building.
3. Throw a kids’ event at the same time (for $50 you can rent out any dollar theater in town to show whatever movie you want.)  The kids don’t want to be at your stuffy old reception any more than you want their stinky young selves there.
4. Even for free, just put a movie on a DVD player somewhere else in the building.  You don’t have to mandate that the kids stay in that room, but they will…
5. The most polite way, although perhaps not as effective, to ward off kids is to specifically list those invited on the inner envelope.  Standard etiquette says that while on an outer envelope you put people’s postal titles (”Dick Jensen”), on the inside you put “Mr. and Mrs. Richard Jensen” (or, more casually, ”Dick and Sonja Jensen.”)  In either case, people are meant to take that as “you two are invited.”  Even doing this for a living, I was surprised how many single people called me to ask if they could bring a date to my reception!  (Of course “Dick Jensen and guest” if they’re single is a good option.)  So then if you want kids, you put “The Dick Jensen family” or something similar.  Even if you only want specific friends (like your buddy and his parents), put “Dick, Sonja, and Kim Jensen.”
6. “No kids, please” is a really tacky thing to put in my opinion.
7. Send out a list of reliable babysitters in the area.  No, you wouldn’t enclose this in your invitation.  But you may already have a small travel packet for those who are coming to the area.  You probably have a guest’s daughter already who could babysit, and you can ask her.  But a list like this would be a nice thing to email around casually after the invitation goes out, through your mother’s grapevine, or on your wedding website.

Please respond below with any comments or questions.

So most couples, when looking for a photographer, just open their yellow pages. They don’t even look outside their county. Why? Because you’re young, and you think small. Making a long distance call, albeit free, is still a psychological barrier for most people. But the bottom line is that most of you will not spend any more money, and will often save money, by conducting a nationwide search for your wedding vendors. Using the example above, you could fly a photographer from Utah to New York far cheaper than you could hire the basest amateur in New York. When I got married, I lived in Utah, got married in Arizona, and had an open house in California. The assumption of anyone in my position would be to hire everyone out of Arizona. Quite the contrary, I, working in this industry and knowing exactly what I was doing, flew in a photographer, videographer, and cake maker; and it was cheaper and higher quality than getting the above in Phoenix. My photographer was one of the top magazine photographers in the region, who had taken many famous pictures I was immediately familiar with—and I got him for I believe $2300 (in 2002), including two photographers, two events, two flights and eight hours of driving. Yes, the prices varied that much, even between Salt Lake and Phoenix. I’m from San Francisco, and out there I wouldn’t have been able to get a college student to do it for that price.

So no matter where you’re at, no matter how large or small your town, remember that it’s a small world, and there may be no finanicial or logistical reason to settle for whoever’s in your town for any aspect of your wedding. Your dress, your invitations, your photography, your video—picking the right person, no matter his location, is not a corner you’ll receive a marginal benefit by cutting.

Simply put, if in some aspect of your event you are paying per person, you will easily pay off the additional $50 the RSVP cards will cost.  In fact, if you’re having a catered reception meal, you may be paying close to $50 a person, and therefore being one person more accurate will pay off those RSVP cards–and you will be at least one person more accurate.

If not, it may still be worth the money if your mother needs to know those specifics to stay calm.  A stressed out mother will really affect the tone of the event.  Imagine having a large framed photo of your family at your wedding on your wall for the rest of your life where, whether anyone else can see it or not, you know that your mother is so freaked out she’s wearing a fake smile.  Isn’t that worth $50?  It’s up to you. 

After both those explanations, I guess I am a fan of RSVP cards for those planning big events.  So if your wedding is unlike those on TV, a $3000 wedding with a static table of Hors d’œuvres, and your personality doesn’t lend to freaking out, it may not be worth it for you…  But if you’re planning a $20,000+ wedding, with a sit-down dinner and you have the kind of mother who can afford that kind of stuff because she’s such a domineering stress case in her corporate life, don’t mess with the tone of your wedding over a $50 upgrade.

• Go somewhere comfortable.  Choose a quiet store where you’re welcome to sit on a couch and look at invitations for six hours in a row if you want to.  Don’t try to do it in an uncomfortable chair or somewhere that has inadequate lighting.
• Take your time and break it up into more than one visit.  Most brides we’ve seen like to look at nearly ALL the samples, and since that’s hundreds of pages, it takes lots of time.  Try to give yourself plenty of time.  Many brides like to choose a couple of favorites, then go home and sleep on it and come back the next day to order.  A few spend three or more sessions looking at samples.  Don’t go to a store where the salesperson rushes you. 
• Feel free to bring someone(s) to look with you.  Take your mom or bridesmaids or sisters or girlfriends along if they have similar taste to you or if you like to get their advice, but if you know they’re going to stress you out leave them home.  Do you bring your fiance along?  For your first visit, I’d say leave him home unless he expresses a desire to come.  Most men like vetos, not choices.  That means he wants to be there to help choose from the top five, but not from the top 500.  If he squirms at all at the idea of looking at hundreds of invitations, don’t pressure him to come or he will be miserable the whole time, which will just make you miserable.  Ask if he has any preferences or requests, then keep them (if any) in mind as you narrow the list to a man-manageable size.   Set a second appointment and bring your fiance along to finish narrowing down to “the one” and complete the order.
• Bring a piece of paper and pen and write down your “Top 10″ list.  Actually, it can be more or less than your top ten, but people usually end up choosing close to that many favorites to narrow down from.  Write down the binder name, color (they’re usually easily identified by color), page number, item number, and a short description of what you think is noticable about the invitation (i.e. “green stripes” or “celtic knot corners” or “big calla lillies”).  You may also want to include the price per invitation on the list (see below).
• When you look at samples, know that they are showing you what your PAPER will look like.  Try not to pay attention to ink color, font, or format, because those are all things you can change.  You can even rotate most papers sideways, so just pay attention to the card itself, and nothing that’s printed on it.  If you do happen to notice a font, ink color, or format you really like, note it on the back of your Top 10 list to come back to later.
• Bring swatches or pictures of fabrics, colors, flowers, and other things you like that you’ve already chosen for your wedding.  That way if you need to match something, you’ll have it with you.  It may also help the sales person know what you’re talking about when you say “I want an invitation with roses.  No, not that kind of rose!” 
• Calculate the price.  Assuming that you have a budget, or that you should have a budget, or that you’re at least someone who either doesn’t want the most expensive invitation or who does want the most expensive one, you’ll probably want to compare prices.   There should be a pricing chart for each sample invitation, and you may notice that after the first quantity (usually 25) the price per invitation drops significantly as you increase your quantity (more on that later).  The easiest way to compare prices is usually to look at the price per 100 (which is easily divisible by 100 to get the price per each).  The exception is usually in those invitations that include a photo, where you’ll probably want to calculate out the price for the actual number of invitations you want to purchase.

Once you have a Top 10 list and are sick of looking at invitations or have exhasted your options, go back and open up to the pages of your favorites and start comparing them to each other and eliminating.  I suggest taking the first invitation on your list, compare it to the second, and decide which you like better.  Get rid of the one you like less, and repeat the process through the entire group.  If you can’t decide between two, then hold on to both of them and compare both to the rest of your list.  Most people come down to a list of one to three invitations they really love from that process of elimination.  At that point, bring in your fiance, your parents, or just decide based on the price difference. 

• First, colored ink isn’t really more expensive.  It generally works out to be $6.50 per item on the whole order–that means your order will go from $450.00 to $456.50.  That’s it.  So don’t let the term “more expensive” scare you off.
• Second, balancing colors is a big part of the invitation.  You’ll find very few invitations in the demonstration binders with black ink, unless it’s specifically an artistic choice.  But it’s not just a default.  When you pick an invitation, consider first the ink color that is shown in the demo.  Those fonts and colors obviously work well with that invitation.
• You can match your wedding colors, etc. using colored cards, but also with colored inks.  Never use more than one color of ink–I’ve seen that advertized and promoted, but I’ve never seen someone pull it off. 
• Stay away from all light colors.  Colors means dark colors.  Nothing red, no pink, no yellow.  You just can’t read those.
• Most of the time the swatches of the ink color you’re considering are 1″ x 1.5″ blocks.  The problem there is that the colors look different on different colors of paper and with different thicknesses of fonts.  Rarely do I see a bride who wants black ink that isn’t more pleased with a thin font with navy blue ink, or something similar.  If you get a thin font, it will look black with a nuance of color; however if you get a thick font, it’ll look blue and ruin everything.  Generally stay with the thin fonts.
• One minor factor with colored inks, with some people, is that you have to professionally print every aspect if you’re using a font that doesn’t come with your home PC, and with an ink color other than black.  If your invitation is in Lucida Sans with black ink, then you can print your own envelopes; but if it’s in navy CPG-CIT, you can’t make your own accessories.  I don’t think it’s ever wise, even mathematically/financially, to make your own invitations or accessories, but if you want to, this is a factor.

But that’s iffy–as I always say, “No one will notice but your mother and all her friends.”  It’s Boomers and older who most of the time play the “it’s tacky” card.  And while I am personally fine with those cards, I go out of my way to never let a bride enclose a 3rd party card–like the ones from Target with the big red target on them. 

Anyway, I’m here today to present a third option, one I use constantly with every bride who is savvy.  Enclose a card that says

That’s it.  A wedding website gives you an excuse to put registry information, direct links, shipping info, maps, pictures, histories, stories, everything…  It’ll look like a complete family website, but the secret thing “funding” it will be your registry info…  In fact, colinandbethany.com at one point had 8.5 MILLION links pointing to it on google!  And it all started as a registry and maps site.  If y’all want a wedding website, just holler and I’ll build you one.  Seriously, I can build you a teensy but legit one for under $50–only because I’ve done it so many times.  I’ll post later on that topic, but for now, don’t use the 3rd party cards, feel free to print some simple ones professionally, and feel encouraged to use the same card instead to announce a registry wedding website.

1. The inner envelope, with the names of the invited guests (sometimes omitted in informal invitations)
2. The outer envelope return address, with the name and address of the place you want gifts to be sent to
3. The outer envelope guest address, with the name and address of the guest(s) you’re sending the invitation to

There are several ways to address your invitations, in order of formality:

1. Caligraphy by yourself or someone you hire
2. Handwritten by yourself (or a team of you and your friends and family at an addressing party, my personal favorite)
3. Printed directly on the envelopes by the printer who prints the invitations (only available for return addresses)
4. Printed directly on the envelopes at home using your computer
5. Printed address labels (we recommend clear labels so you don’t have to find ones that match your envelopes)

You can use more than one method of addressing in combination.  For instance, you can have your printer print the return addresses in matching ink and font to your invitations, and then handwrite the addresses and inner envelope names or use labels. 

I recommend making the decision about the method of addressing your invitations based on a combination of the formality of your wedding (remember, your invitations set the tone for your event), the formality of your guests (your grandmother may be shocked at seeing her address printed on a label), your budget, and the amount of time you have to dedicate to the task.  If you have the budget and you are having a very formal wedding, hire someone to do the addresses in caligraphy.  If you have a small budget, but have lots of time and a formal wedding, write the addresses yourself.  If you’re in college, have little money, are having a medium-formality wedding, and are planning to get married right after finals, by all means print those labels and slap them on.  It’s better to get the invitations to the guests less formally than to not invite them at all because you’re trying to handwrite the addresses in between classes and just didn’t have the time to finish the task.