Invitation style - opinions please!

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insideitall

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So, I’m making all the paper stuff for our wedding. It took me forever to decide how I wanted to design the invitations, but I finally chose a really neat border. I will be using ivory/cream/offwhite recycled paper, so it’ll have specks. My colors by default are ivory and brown - ivory bc I’m wearing my mom’s dress, and that’s what color it’s turned, and brown because it’s fall, and I can’t imagine red, orange, or yellow dresses looking good… and I like brown… and brown can be worn again :cool:

Anyway, I’m going to use a print shop (toner). I have designs for invitations, reply cards, thank you cards, and programs.

My question: Will it look odd to have everything printed in black only? I know black and white is classic, and my designs look good, but will it be weird to not have brown on the invite if it’s a main color? What about if I addressed the (ivory) envelopes with a brown marker? Do people really analyze invitations that much, or am I just being stupid?

I’m one of those people who thinks black and brown go together just fine… I know a lot of people don’t agree, though, and I don’t have much fashion sense… so maybe y’all can help! :cool:

My other idea was to print the copy I’ll save in color, cause that’s what I like, and print everything else in black 😃

The only reason I’m putting any real thought into this is because I really like my design… I could care less about the rest of the planning, actually…

Thanks, everyone!
 
insideitall said:
So, I’m making all the paper stuff for our wedding. It took me forever to decide how I wanted to design the invitations, but I finally chose a really neat border. I will be using ivory/cream/offwhite recycled paper, so it’ll have specks. My colors by default are ivory and brown - ivory bc I’m wearing my mom’s dress, and that’s what color it’s turned, and brown because it’s fall, and I can’t imagine red, orange, or yellow dresses looking good… and I like brown… and brown can be worn again :cool:

Anyway, I’m going to use a print shop (toner). I have designs for invitations, reply cards, thank you cards, and programs.

My question: Will it look odd to have everything printed in black only? I know black and white is classic, and my designs look good, but will it be weird to not have brown on the invite if it’s a main color? What about if I addressed the (ivory) envelopes with a brown marker? Do people really analyze invitations that much, or am I just being stupid?

I’m one of those people who thinks black and brown go together just fine… I know a lot of people don’t agree, though, and I don’t have much fashion sense… so maybe y’all can help! :cool:

My other idea was to print the copy I’ll save in color, cause that’s what I like, and print everything else in black 😃

The only reason I’m putting any real thought into this is because I really like my design… I could care less about the rest of the planning, actually…

Thanks, everyone!
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Actually, black ink with your ivory papers will be classy and lovely. There is no need at all to match your invitations/ink to your decoration colors. Would never have crossed my mind to do so (2 daughters’ weddings.)

I’d forget the brown marker on the envelope, too. Stick with the classic black and go nuts with the ivory and brown in the actual bridesmaids’ dresses, reception decor, etc.

Best wishes on your upcoming wedding!
 
insideitall said:
My colors by default are ivory and brown - ivory bc I’m wearing my mom’s dress, and that’s what color it’s turned, and brown because it’s fall, and I can’t imagine red, orange, or yellow dresses looking good… and I like brown… and brown can be worn again :cool:
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I was married in the fall, too.

I kept with the fall colours. My wedding dress was off white and my three bridesmaids dresses were soft gold, burnt orange and chocolate brown. All were solid colours and it looked fabulous. Each wore a wreath of autumn flowers with a touch of babies breath on their heads.

As for your invitations, I always liked black ink on grey stock. To me it looks stunning and expensive. But, I’m sure anything you pick will be great. Maybe you should run this by your fiancee.

Have you chosen a keepsake wedding gift for your soon-to-be husband yet? Or, do you not do that in your part of the world?
 
I would stick with black ink, classic and classy! Don’t worry about matching everything!

And don’t kill yourself - keep in mind that most people are not looking that closely at the invitation, and most will throw it away, LOL! I never understood spending a fortune on something that most will toss away!

Are you doing a program? I did one, it came out pretty using just ivory with black ink but tied with a ribbon that coordinated with the bridesmaid’s colors. I got married in October, the girls wore a dark purpley-eggplant color.

So exciting planning a wedding! Keep us posted!
 
Use black ink on the invitation and on the envelopes. That is standard wedding etiquette.

The colored ink craze of late is a no-no in the etiquette books. If your invitations are to be formal invitations, use black ink. Of course, the real standard is engraving, but we won’t go there. I made my invitations too, so I chucked that particular point of etiquette and its price tag!

If your wedding is informal, or your invitations are informal, then a color would not be a faux pas.

That’s my Miss Manners 2 cents.
 
Hi.

My fiancee and I are just tackling this issue.

Since most affordable laser printers use black toner, it’s logical to keep to black only. Per other posters, additional colors are distracting, costly and maybe hard to read.

That doesn’t mean you can embellish invitations with black line art to help. I found this site, Briar Press, a repository of free (and some purchasable) line art to work well with our design.
 
Yay 🙂 Just what I wanted to hear.

I actually am not really excited about planning anything else - fi’s having to prod me for most of the other things that need to be done :eek:

dixie, I only started wondering bc the last wedding I went to, the paper matched the color of the bm dresses, so I was like “huh, is that what you’re supposed to do?” I much prefer b+w, so this is good.

susan mary, I think some people do because I see it listed on “wedding budget” pages, but I don’t know anything more about it, and won’t be doing that. Oh, and he actually could care less about the invitations… he’s not crafty at all, wanted to buy them but when he realized how expensive they were he said sure, you want to play arts and crafts go ahead :rotfl:

sj, I am doing a program. I’m using the same ivory paper but lighter weight. It will just be a 8.5 x 11 sheet folded in half. The inside has the order of mass with song and reading titles, and the back page has everyone involved listed with their relationship to us.

1ke, I would say we’ll be having a semiformal wedding. The reception will be at a nice venue (his choice) that provides all the catering and table decorations (one of those big box places for proms and weddings), but I don’t otherwise want super fancy schmancy stuff. I’m not really sure what the difference is between formal and semiformal invitation wording, or maybe there really isn’t any and it just depends on whether or not it’s a day or evening event - but I like how it sounds so we’ll do that. We’ll let people know on the info sheet that it’s semiformal dress. The last wedding we went to was semiformal, but what all the girls were wearing seemed more like dressing up for a night on the town to me…

spencerian, the cost was also what I was worried about. the cheapest price for color I could find was 39c, which was a special. Otherwise, it was 59. Still way too much, and defeats part of the purpose of creating them myself!

Anyway, you have all put my mind at ease with what my gut was telling me 😃
 
I would go ahead and make them all in the inexpensive time efficient black - but make a couple in the brown to go in your picture frames with your bridal pictures because a few years now you won’t remember anyway but that one staring at you in the invitation frame not to mention the couple that your mother and MIL will be sure to have will be topics of conversation if they aren’t perfect. Just thinking ahead. 😛
 
I recommend you pick up a copy of Crane’s Blue Book. I got a used copy at Half Price Books in the wedding section. It was very helpful with all the details of invitations, addressing envelopes, etc., when we got married.

Regarding attire, etiquette would dictate that you not place a dress code on your invitations. The formality of the invitation, reception venue, and the time of day of the wedding dictate the dress.

Again, Miss Manners 2 cents. Just went through all this with my sister’s wedding.
 
joan, I agree, it probably is a good idea to have a few pretty ones. As someone else pointed out, most of the others will get thrown out.

1ke, I meant put that info on the sheet with maps, addresses, directions, website, etc. I think I have a pretty good handle on addressing the invites - I’ve read a lot of etiquette books/articles (though not Crane’s) . I’m ignoring some things (for example, I’m not using an inner envelope (so “and family” will be on the outer envelope, which I know “they” don’t like), and I’m using a postcard for the response card), but I don’t think those are really big deals. I’m not a super environmentally person but I can’t justify using all that extra paper for stuff that will be thrown out. Thanks for your spare change! 😃

The real reason I’m so excited about the invitations, actually…

I found a website where the guy had scanned images from old books. I’m using a border found on pages from a book on illumination, published in 1860.

How cool is that?? hahaha
 
insideitall said:
I found a website where the guy had scanned images from old books. I’m using a border found on pages from a book on illumination, published in 1860.
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I would love to see that! Link please??

Regarding the invitation colors, I would do the text in black and the border in brown, which would look very nice if your paper is the cream color I imagine. Black and brown can look great together, as long as there is enough contrast.

I’m not getting married any time soon, but I can see myself turning the ceremony program into a full-blown missalette, with explanations, readings, and hymn lyrics printed, and if some parts of the Mass are in Latin, those too with translations. So there’s an idea for you - both a chance to use some more of that beautiful border/use your design skills and to do some sneaky cathechism. If it’s within the budget, of course.
 
Forget etiquette - have the Church wedding - send the ones you like to the reception - send everyone else you like to McDonald’s - much cheaper - then shrug shoulders and say oops, printing mistakes you know how it is when you try to do everything on your own? :rolleyes:
 
hahaha joan, you crack me up…

mpr, this is the main page. Looks like this guy and his scanner are pretty good friends.

You can do some neat stuff with a photoshopping program, but even if you don’t know anything about those, you can use Paint to rotate, of course you can format the image to change the size, and Picasa has a LOT of cool things to do with photos. If you still want the original make sure to work with a copy and name it differently so you can tell them apart. The only tricky thing I ran into was using it in Word - set it as “behind” text so your text will show through, and then you can position it as a border. Also, it’s a good idea to write all the text first, because sometimes you can’t click off the picture. After placing the image you can format the text as needed. Word is stupid…
 
I originally was thinking about doing a full program, text and everything - but that’ll be more work, because I don’t know exactly what will be said. Also, it will be a bit pointless, as both our families are Catholic, nearly all my friends are, and of the ones that aren’t, nearly all are somewhat familiar with Mass. I don’t think any of his friends are religious, but they are all smart enough to follow along in the missalette. I will put page numbers in there.

I totally fell in love with this company, and if we were inviting a lot of non-Catholics, I would have shelled out for these programs.

It looks like this forum allows document attachments, so if I can figure it out, and if I remember, I’ll post what I’ve done. In the next few months. (I’m doing this pretty far ahead of time.) At least the wording, if not the actual design, might help someone else!
 
My huband did our programs off of Publisher it was not as hard as you might think and there were plenty of places that would let you download a temporary program trial just long enough to get it done. The nice part was we could also put personal pics in.
 
insideitall said:
Word is stupid…
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Yes, Word can definitely be a pain. But from the sound of it, you know the cardinal rule of Microsoft Word - type the text first, format later. Word tries to read your mind all the time and nothing drives it crazier than trying to figure out whether you want your next line of text formatted exactly as the previous one or in some other way. Making a portion text into 2+ columns without writing everything first can really mess up things, for example…

Anyway, thanks for the link 🙂
insideitall said:
as both our families are Catholic, nearly all my friends are
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My family is (mostly) Catholic too, but my own immediate family (mom, dad, siblings) is clueless enough about the Mass that they don’t know when to kneel, for example. In fact, this is a problem everyone in my parish seems to have. The time I was in the U.S. (in the South), I saw that everyone acted in unison, though… which means that my irritation level at seeing everyone act cluelessly in Mass only increased =\

If both your families are religious and now what goes on at Mass, then for sure there would be no need for a program.
joandarc2008 said:
there were plenty of places that would let you download a temporary program trial just long enough to get it done.
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There’s a good idea. I think Photoshop + Acrobat Pro would do the trick. Adobe InDesign is supposed to be used for stuff like this, but I don’t find it as intuitive as Photoshop (or Publisher) - that is, I have no clue how to use it.

On the subject of wedding invitations, all two invitations I’ve seen for weddings (and the three or four for Quinceañeros) were written as though they came from the parents. They followed a template like this, assuming the couple is John White and Michelle Smith: the White family and the Smith family invite you, _____, to the union in holy matrimony of John and Michelle, to be celebrated, etc.. Do you guys do this? Or is it always the couple itself that does the “inviting” in the invitation?
 
mPR said:
On the subject of wedding invitations, all two invitations I’ve seen for weddings (and the three or four for Quinceañeros) were written as though they came from the parents. They followed a template like this, assuming the couple is John White and Michelle Smith: the White family and the Smith family invite you, _____, to the union in holy matrimony of John and Michelle, to be celebrated, etc.. Do you guys do this? Or is it always the couple itself that does the “inviting” in the invitation?
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The wedding invitation should be issued by the bride’s parents, unless they are both deceased. The invitation wording for a Catholic wedding would be as follows:

Mr. and Mrs. Mark Richard Smith
request the honor of your presence
as their daughter

Michelle Annette
and
John Lawrence White

[son of
Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Oliver White]

are united in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony
…date
…time
… place, etc

listing the [parents of the groom] is optional
 
Ours will be written as
“miss first middle last
daughter of mr and mrs mydadfirst dadlast
and
mr first middle last
son of mr and mrs hisdadfirst dadlast”

etc, etc. (request, date, time, location) as we are paying for everything, but would still like give our parents a place on the card. I know technically those books say if your parents are alive they are hosting even if they’re not paying… but as far as I’m concerned, they’re just showing up. 😃
 
As far as need for program not need - while sitting, standing, kneeling wasn’t an issue for the Catholics - we had some others. Also Publisher allowed us to make a two sided trifold brochure which allowed us to put in all the names of the wedding parties, the celebrant, the deacon who was doing the homily, and all of the readings and who was doing them. We also were able to include a pic of my dh and I (our engagement photo) and my stepdaughter (husband’s daughter) was alter serving so she as included as well. So there was a lot. Also it is nice to have a copy laminated later for memories or framed with one of those invitations and a picture of you and your new spouse - I’m sorry I can’t tell if you are the hubby or the wife I didn’t look at the profile - doh.
 
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