some invitation pointers

good morning brides!

some thoughts from my invitation experience, which may make yours better!

1. make sure all opinionated parties (mom, FMIL, etc.) agree on the wording before the invites are printed and paid in full.

2. unless you have extra time, or extra help, avoid invites that require excessive assembly (e.g., ribbons that you must cut and then tie into bows onto a tri-folded invitation). That said, if you are going to tie ribbon bows, martha stewart's site has great instructions on how to do it.

3. send yourself a sample invite, using all inserts, well before you finalize the guests invitations. This way, you'll have time to solve unanticipated problems, such as the invite coming open in the mail and looking war-torn or the response card and envelope turning red from the red ink on the hotel card (Smithtown Sheraton, if you're wondering) on top of it.

4. Ordering stamps online from usps.com is easy and means that you may have a wider stamp selection than in your post office

5. Consider non-traditional invite vendors. We used Party City, which has loads of Carlson and Birchcraft books, among others. Our invitations came in within five days, each time we had them printed. And, they discount 30%.

6. Make sure everything is perfect as soon as you get your invitations. Count every invitation, insert and envelope; make sure every detail you requested is there (like envelope liners); make sure the ink is consistent on all pieces; and look for typos.

Ladies...any other tips to share???

Very good points. WE (what's this we it was 98% me) just finished putting ours together today.

Yes, I especially agree with the ribbon. I'm a teacher and had off this week but it still took me a long time to do 75 invites (one grossgrain and one satin ribbon on each). A good part of the day to print out the inner and outer envelopes as well.

Make sure you have your A-list and B-list set.

Additional Tip: make sure you number your response cards in case you get ones back without names

Additional Tip #2: If you are mailing overseas or to Canada don't seal them up until you take them to the post office. You'll need to put additional postage on the response card envelope and the invite.

Additonal Tip #3: Make sure you let all parties know that there are no more additional invites past a certain date or number. THAT's IT!

In pencil lightly number (consecutively) the back of every response card. On your invite list create a corresponding number next to each name. That way, say card number 52 comes back with the words 'we're delighted to attend.' You can now figure out who the heck sent it and not go into a blind panic. You look on the back of your response card and see number 52, go to your invite list - see who number 52 is and low and behold it's cousin James and his wife Martha. Cool - now you know they are coming.

Thanks!!! these are excellent tips!!!!!!