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Order your invitations as soon as you have the information you need to print them, the earlier the better. 

Need a more specific answer?  Here are some factors to consider:

• Most invitations printers take between two and four weeks from the time they receive the order to the time it’s delivered, but they don’t guarantee delivery in that amount of time because they’re used to people ordering six months in advance.  Some kinds of invitations (like the kinds with photos printed on them) take a little longer to print than the traditional kind and if you’re doing something unusual give yourself more of a time buffer than you otherwise would.
• If you possibly can, add a week or more into your equation for mistakes.  No matter how diligent you are at proofreading, there could be a typo that no one catches.  We had a bride misspell her fiance’s name once, and the invitations had to be reprinted.  Occassionally the printer will make a mistake (printing on the wrong paper, using the wrong font or ink color, etc.), and the invitations will have to be reprinted.  If that happens, the printer will normally pay for the reprinting and rush the printing and shipping, but it will take time and you’ll be saved a lot of stress if you left some time for corrections.
• You will need time to address the invitations.  If you choose to handwrite the addresses, make sure you give yourself plenty of time to write.  I tell brides who are handwriting their addresses to give themselves about two weeks to do it.  If you’re printing address labels or printing the addresses directly on the envelopes, still give yourself a few days (I’d say about a week) to get it done.
• If you’re going to require an RSVP from your guests (like for a catered reception), add a couple of weeks to your calculations.
• A factor that most brides don’t know to consider when they’re deciding when to order their invitations is the geography of their guests.  People in different places have different expectations about how early a wedding invitation should arrive.  We suggest that brides sort their guest list by ZIP code and think about her guests by region.  Any time you send an invitation to someone who lives far away who might want to come to your wedding you need to give them plenty of notice so that they can get reasonable rates on their travel and lodging.  Try for 8 weeks before the wedding, if at all possible, if they need to fly in (especially internationally).  In the United States, people on either coast generally expect to receive wedding invitations 6-8 weeks before the event.  In some areas (like the Intermountain West) many people prefer to get invitations no more than two weeks before the wedding, possibly because the invitation is viewed as a reminder and if they get the invitation too early they’ll forget about it. 
• Don’t forget to add in the amount of time it will take in the mail!  Usually it takes 2-3 days in the US, but if you send the invitations around a major holiday like Christmas it could take a few days longer.  If you’re mailing internationally, try to find out how long it will take to arrive and plan with that number in mind. 
• The formality of your wedding and of your guests is another consideration.  The more formal the wedding and/or the guests, the earlier to invitations should arrive.  Eight weeks advanced notice is usually all that is expected even for the most formal wedding or from the most formal guest.

So, worst case scenario: 5 weeks for printing+2 weeks for reprinting because of typos+2 weeks for addressing+2 weeks for RSVPs+8 weeks before the wedding for guests who traveling in+1 week for time in the mail=Order 20 weeks before the wedding.

Best case scenario: 2 weeks for printing+0 time for reprinting+1 week for addressing+0 time for RSVPs+2 weeks before the wedding for informal guests who live nearby+2 days time in the mail=Order 5 weeks and a couple of days before the wedding.

Most people will want to order their invitations somewhere in between the worst and best case scenarios.  Hopefully the equations above will help you make an informed decision.  If you’re having a last-minute wedding and can only get your invitations to your guests a week in advance (or less!), don’t worry.  Hopefully you have a bunch of understanding friends and relatives who love you and don’t really care when their invitation arrives because they’re coming to the wedding with or without one.  Happy ordering!

Popularity: 38% [?]

Here’s the most common wording for an LDS/Mormon wedding invitation or announcement:

• Normally I use somewhere around 1.5 spacing on the body and single spacing on the corner copies.
• If you’re using corner copies (which most LDS people are because of college and stuff), you may want to have the bride’s and groom’s names in a different, larger font.  That allows you to put everything else in a smaller font.  The corner copies themselves are in a smaller font even still…  Most invitations, nationally, are designed to allow 12 lines of text; and the average LDS wedding I’d say uses 19 lines.  That’s no big deal—it won’t cost you more than $7 on the whole order—but vertical space is precious, since it defines the font size of everything on the page.  That being said, if you’re having two receptions or two open houses, you can leave off the first line of the corner copy.
• It’s lovely to be able to put “in the Snowflake Arizona Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” but you’ve gotta’ figure out how to fit it.  The only possible way is to break the line after “temple,” but even still unless you’re using a pretty non-serif font you probably will have to break “The Church of Jesus Christ” from “of Latter-day Saints.”  Rather than deal with all this, most people just put “Snowflake Arizona LDS Temple.”  It’s up to you.
• You’ll have to “make up” a name for your church building if you’re having a reception there.  That probably won’t be hard, because you probably have an unofficial name for it already—like “The Windcrest Chapel.” No, you can’t use “stake center,” but nowadays most churches are built in subdivisions with pretty names.

Popularity: 100% [?]

One thing I like to do at restaurants is ask the waitress which items everyone loves, but no one gets.  It’s an odd question, but everyone who works in any branch of customer service can answer it.  For invitations, it’s square wedding invitations.  As each bride works her way down to a top 10 list before picking an invitation, without fail one of those 10 is square.  Most of the time it makes it into her top 5; and a good percentage of the time it makes it to #2; but never does any bride order them.  Why?  Everyone loves them, so why doesn’t anyone ever order them?  The answer is simple: by the time a bride makes it to my door she’s already feeling a lot of buyer’s remorse from the amount of money she’s spend so far on her wedding (jewelry, photography, cake, etc.)  Often she’s already told herself, walking in, that she won’t spend a dime more than is absolutely necessary (and I understand that.)  When confronted with her top 2 choices–both of which she loves–she’s going to panic when she finds out one costs $0.11 more in stamps.  Yes, eleven cents–I know it’s no big deal, but no one ever gets over it.  I try to explain that they’ll get more than that 11 cents back in gifts if they crank it up a notch, but it never works…  So if you’re reading this, and considering square wedding invitations, do it!

Popularity: 45% [?]