Wedding Invitations

This is where we have to get down to a lot of nitty gritty stuff. Over the next month, will discuss many of the questions we are frequently asked about wedding invitation wording. I
will bold each topic so if you don’t need help in any of these
particular areas, just skip over it.

In an attempt to be able to help
anyone with any question regarding wedding invitation wording, I will
be very thorough so these entries will be long and there will be many of them, hopefully by so doing, cover all
questions. If something isn’t answered here to your satisfaction fill
out our questions form and someone will get back to you as soon as we
have an answer. We will start with the first topic tomorrow concerning who is supposed to be doing the inviting when it comes to the wedding invitations.

Who’s responsible for the Rehersal Dinner?

The wedding rehearsal dinner takes place the night before the wedding,
after the rehearsal and is traditionally hosted by the groom’s family.
They also issue the invitations, the wording of which can be formal or
informal. A lot depends on the family and just how formal they want to
be addressed. The invitations should not upstage the wedding
invitations but should compliment them.

Who is invited to the rehearsal dinner and when should the invitations be sent?

Traditionally the wedding rehearsal dinner was reserved for the wedding party
but nowadays, it includes the spouses, dates, and out of town guests,
pretty much whoever both families want to include. 

A rule of thumb would be that the rehearsal dinner reservations should go out two weeks prior to the wedding.

Who should throw a bridal shower for the bride? Can my mother or sister sponser it?

Bridal showers are hosted generally by the bride’s maid of honor or
other close friend or friends. The invitations for these are usually
informal. Many bridal showers have gift themes, such as kitchen,
linens, lingerie.

It would be inappropriate for a family member to host a bridal shower
since the purpose is to receive gifts. It would appear that they are
soliciting gifts on your behalf.

Many years ago a father proved a dowry of gifts that would
accompany a bride (his daughter) into the marriage making her more
attractive to potential husbands. It would help give them a better
financial start in their new lives together. Today’s modern bridal
shower is a newer tradition to take its place. It is attended by family
and friends and is a way to jump start a bride and her groom to provide
them with some of the basic necessities.

To whom should I write thank you notes and what should I say? I’m really not very good with words.

Of course anyone who sent you a wedding gift, even a family member deserves
a thank you note and don’t forget the people who helped you in any way
with your wedding ceremony, reception, etc.

Receiving cards and notes these
days of quick phone calls and emails is actually very special. They
mean a lot and because they are permanent and static, they can be
reread over and over. However, don’t get writer’s block and put it off
because you think it has to be a masterpiece. Just write how you would
thank them in person. Your recipients really just want to assurance
that you received their gift and that you appreciate it.

If someone
spent time helping you, even though it may be something they really
wanted to do for you, it means an awful lot to even just a short note
of thanks.

Don’t let your thank you notes pile up if you can avoid it. Try to
keep up with them as the gifts arrive so you won’t be overwhelmed with
so many at once. That way it won’t seem so much like a chore. Don’t
worry if you can’t think of different creative ways of saying thanks.
They aren’t going to be comparing notes!

Here are some of the questions we get about thank you notes:

Is it proper to have our return address printed on the back flap of our thank you notes?

The post office requires that a return address be present on any
outgoing mail. Having your return address printed on the back flap
certainly saves time from hand writing it and looks more professional
than hand writing it and certainly looks better that cheap labels.

How many thank you notes should I order?

Be sure to order enough, of course to cover all your gifts, but I
would definitely order more because there are many occasions in which
you will need a thank you note. Someone invites you to their house for
dinner, etc. Whenever something like thank you notes are personalized
you get hit with a pretty big charge for the first 25, it is
considerably less per item, the more you buy, so you are better off
overbuying on something like that if you know you can use them at a
later date.

You should order your "thank you" notes when you order your wedding invitations to save shipping costs and just to avoide the time an strain of have ing to do it later.

When using stationery to thank your guests for your wedding gifts, and if you are thinking of having your thank you cards personalized
with a monogram instead of your name, the proper way to do that is to make the middle initial larger than
the rest and is to stand for your last name.

The first initial is for the
first letter of your first name and the third is for the first letter
of your maiden name after you are married. Before you are married, the
third initial would be the first letter of your middle name. If you
have a name like McDonald, you can either use just the “M” or McD”
whichever you prefer. If you want to only use one letter as your
monogram, most prefer to use the initial representing their last name.

Monograms are used only on personalized wedding stationery and never on the wedding invitations themselves.

“Thank You” notes provide you the opportunity to express your
appreciation to those who were thoughtful enough to send you wedding
presents. Besides expressing your appreciation, these thank you notes
also let your recipient know that you did receive their gift and that
nothing happened to it in the mail. Your “thank yous” should be sent as
soon as possible after the wedding.

They seem more sincere if they are
sent in a timely manner. In fact, if you receive some of your gifts
before the wedding, it would be really smart if you can make the time,
to send your thank you for those even before the wedding to get it out
of the way and cut down on the number you will need to do when you get
back from your honeymoon.

Just realize that if will be using
personalized stationery for these, you will need to get some with your
maiden name on them since you won’t be married yet!

The term, “Informals” is actually an misnomer in that they are a
“formal” note – so much so that to keep it a “formal” note, only the
bride’s name is to be printed on the front (i.e.: Mrs. Stephen Sampson)
if the informal reads, “Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Sampson it makes it more
of an informal note.

The thinking here is that even though the note is
coming from both individuals, it is only being written by one person.
The thought continues that if the groom will be writing some of his own
thank you notes, that he should have is one stationery with just his
name on it. If you don’t mind coming across more casual, both names can
be included. Again, first names (i.e.: Stephen and Karen Sampson)
rather than “Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Sampson, makes it ultra informal.
So…I guess it really depends on how you want to come across and how
important is it to you to be proper and formal.

Not everyone will need pew cards but they are used when specific
pew have been assigned for some or all of the guests. They help the
ushers efficiently guide the guests to the assigned seating area. The
pew cards are one on the enclosures sent with the invitations and have
a space on the card which is filled in by hand with the appropriate pew.

Another way to simply get some of your guests, say if you have a large family, that you want to be able to sit up close, like in the first few rows, there is another way you can handle that. You can have "within the ribbon" cards enclosed in those specific wedding invitations, and drape a decorative rope or ribbons along the rows you want to reserve. What a lot of brides do is to simply buy or make some beautiful bows to place on the end of the rows that are to be reserved for special guests. If you are doing that stricly for family, all your family would have to do is tell the ushers that they are family and he will know where to seat them.

One way to alert family and friends to your new address is to include
at-home cards with your wedding invitation or announcement. Some couples also
include their new phone number if they know what that will be. Include
the date that you will be returning from your honey moon.

They will be
worded a bit differently if included in a wedding announcement than if
included with an invitation since you will be married in one and not
yet in the other. The card that is used for this information is the same card that is used for the reception and response information and priced the same as the reception card.