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Looking online or at huge binders of sample invitations can get really overwhelming.  Here are some tips to help you focus and enjoy the process:

• 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. 

Popularity: 53% [?]

By all means, buy your invitations online if you prefer that method.  However, never make a stationery purchase without touching and seeing an actual sample of the paper it will be printed on.  Photographs of samples may help you narrow your choices, but you won’t know the weight, texture, or true color of the paper unless you actually see it in person.  What looks white on your screen may look ecru in person, and what looks smooth may be textured.  Always order a sample or go to a store and look at actual samples of the invitation you’re planning to buy before you make a purchase.  It will save you lots of (possibly expensive) disappointment and time.

Popularity: 52% [?]

Most brides walk in the door assuming they’ll get black ink.  Most at some point in the process change their mind.  Every bride debates the same questions, and every bride comes to the same conclusions.  So let me save you some time taking you on their journey:

• 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.

Popularity: 54% [?]

Registering is a standard part of today’s wedding.  Yet people who memorize rules still insist that doing so is tacky.  Or, often, that you can register, but you can’t tell anyone unless they really push you.  I personally am fine with little inserts (most of the time listed as Pew Cards at the printers) being enclosed with the announcement which say where you’re registered–just a simple,

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.

Popularity: 53% [?]

There are three parts to addressing your invitations:

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. 

Popularity: 52% [?]