How do you decide who you are going to invite to your wedding? Of course the usual suspects are always included. Immediate family usually means parents, siblings, children, first cousins if you’re close, aunts and uncles, and grandparents if you’re fortunate enough to still have them around. Friends from school are regularly invited . . . if you’re still friends with them and you’ve been out of school awhile, they’re obviously good friends. Best friends are clearly a no-brainer.
After that, it all becomes something of a judgment call mixed in with personal preferences. Do you invite your boss? Well, depending on how big your wedding will be, how close you are to him or her, whether or not you really like the person, and if you ever want a raise—yes, you might want to invite your boss, and his or her spouse or significant other. Do you invite your neighbors, or the couples you and your intended bowl with every month, or the guy who sits in the cubicle three cubicles away from yours? This is where it gets down to the nitty-gritty, and you might as well start big—heck, on paper, invite everyone. Absolutely every single person you can call to mind. Then get serious and whittle it down to a manageable and meaningful number.
Okay, now you have in theory decided upon your true guest list. You and your honey have only recently decided to tie the knot, and preparations are just beginning. So many things need to get done and, traditionally, the actual wedding invitations don’t go out until a short time before the blessed event. Still, you want everyone to know the date you have chosen for that event, give them a heads-up, and ask them not to schedule anything else on that date. How do you do that?
Send out Save the Date invitations. These delightful inventions are brilliant, offering you a way to secure your wedding date in the schedules of all you hope will attend but not yet having to formalize the actual invitation. With a well-defined ballpark number of expected guests, you can then go on to make all those arrangements that will require you to put down payments on various services based on bodies in attendance.
What will a Save the Date invitation to your wedding look like? You’re going to have to design your wedding invitation, anyway, so you might as well start with a Save the Date invitation and follow through with that vision into all other printed materials you will need for your wedding and reception. Coordination—such a beautiful thing, especially when you want it all to be absolutely perfect. Nothing else is acceptable, right?
There is the paper quality and color to choose. Who knew there were so many?! Depending on your budget and tastes, you can do anything from a colored copy paper, to a recycle paper, to a heavy-duty expensive quality stationery. You can not only design it but print it yourself if you wish. Or you can go to an established in-town printer. Or, a middle ground option would be to use a quality online printer with an excellent reputation.
Often the online printer, especially in today’s market of safe and everything-goes online shopping, will be your best bet, not only economically but time-wise, as well. You can literally get absolutely anything you want, and you can make your choices at any time of day or night, based on your own schedule.
Take your Save the Date invitation choices and integrate those ideas into your bridal shower and wedding invitations. Save the Date invitations go out to all those folks you designated on your serious guest list. You’ve chosen the paper, and then you can decide upon design and/or artwork, whether or not you will add a personal photo, text—usually short and sweet, “We’re getting married. Here’s the date. Invitation to follow,” or something similar.
Some of the best Save the Date invitations can be put together in short order via online print shops, saved to their system, and paid for via their secure online server options. And if you have chosen to add your favorite photo—you and your betrothed sitting together on the beach with the wind whipping through your hair and the surf lapping at your ankles and bare feet—that’s easily done by following their simple directions and uploading the photo in a computer file from your home system.
A simple but elegant Save the Date invitation is often available from the printer’s many offered designs. Use a graphic of the calendar month in which you’re getting married, with the day of the month circled. Maybe include roses surrounding that, or a pair of wedding rings, or something similar . . . with the proper wording, and your Save the Date invitation is easily and quickly designed and ready. Just pay for it and wait for it to reach you, usually in about a week’s time.
It’s always all in the planning, isn’t it? If you get your Save the Date invitations created to your specifications, and then in the mail, you often will feel more comfortable about the rest of the preparations. These Save the Date invitations give you the freedom to hold with an attendance guesstimate, certainly easing your concerns of having to make reservations when you don’t yet have any real clue as to how many people will attend your wedding and, more specifically, your reception. The reception is where you have to really start pulling out the checkbook . . . and already having in hand some distinct numbers for that is very helpful.
Whether you hope for a small, intimate gathering of only those family members and friends closest to you, or you plan for a big, open, community-style wedding, being able to pinpoint a good idea of how many will be there is always a good thing. Save the Date invitations are likely your best tools. Utilize them to your benefit, and let them work for you. Design them exactly how you want them to appear since these Save the Date invitations are, without question, reflections of your personality and lifestyle.
Be unique while, at the same time, being organized. Don’t stifle your originality, and don’t put yourself out in left field by not early-on having all the needed details. Keep a well-heeled perspective and treat your wedding preparations much in the same way you would handle them if you were the wedding planner. You do have a bottom line to which you must attend . . . and if you heed that, you will allow yourself enough leeway to create your perfect wedding. Always start out with Save the Date invitations, and work out from there.