First, I have to apologise for not updating my Wedding Diary as often as I should. I assure you the wedding is being planned but I underestimated how hard it would be to run a magazine, publish a book while writing another one, be a freelance writer, act and go to auditions, finish two scripts and plan a wedding all at once. I am also sure I missed something out there. To top it all off: we are also moving a couple of days after our wedding. That won’t be stressful at all….
So for my first of many catch-up entries I am going to start with the invites. Now a lot of wedding invites are incredibly expensive. You are talking hundreds of pounds for a piece of cardboard. We were shocked at the prices. If you add in save the date cards and thank you cards, it would be easy to rack up a thousand pounds if you include postage. So what is a frugal girl to do? Ebay. Obviously.
We got beautiful, personalised invitations for a very reasonable price. I won’t show the exact ones at the moment because I haven’t sent them out yet and we don’t want to ruin the surprise of people getting them (or have stalkers turn up at our wedding. I have had a few bad experiences in the past). The invitations are beautiful, come with envelopes and are well made and high quality. Just put ‘wedding invitations’ into the search function of Ebay and you can get some amazing ones for under £50.
We didn’t send out save the date cards because of environmental reasons, and also cost. We emailed and called people instead. The wedding industry is a £10 billion industry in the UK so don’t buy something just because you feel you have to.
When it came to the design of our invitations, we wanted something that reflected us and who we are. Family members will probably try and pull you in a certain way, but we wanted ours to be fresh and fun. Our invites are white, with a multicoloured tree. We are in our twenties so we wanted something to reflect that: nothing stuffy. They also came in a very handy, protective plastic case.
If you want to spend more on your invitations then John Lewis do some beautiful ones, and so do Marks and Spencers and VistaPrint. If you are good at DIY you can also make your own.
What to put on your invites
Your names (we included our surnames as we weren’t sure people would know who we were!)
Date and time of the wedding
RSVP details. Include a non-email option for the older guests. Include a deadline for the RSVP. Needed for the catering and seating.
The venue address and the reception address too if it is different.
Your wedding gift list number. We went with John Lewis and Prezola.com
Other options
Parents details. We decided not to do this but you can include either parents or both. As in: ‘Mr and Mrs Smith invite *guest name* to the marriage of their daughter, Chloe, to Matt Fox.’
Dress code. We didn’t put one on as everyone knows weddings are formal. I would only include a dress code if it is anything other than formal. For instance: a themed wedding or black tie.
You can, of course, put whatever you want on your invitations. It is your wedding.
What will you put?
My wedding book is out now. If you are getting married then check out my book The Wedding Survival Guide: How To Plan Your Big Day Without Losing Your Sanity, it has everything you need to know about planning your dream wedding.