Believe it or not, the Royal Mail Pricing in Proportion change for postal charges will have been in force for 3 years this coming August.  Previously, postage prices were based upon the weight of the item. The heavier the item, the higher the price. Pricing in Proportion also takes into consideration the physical size and thickness of the item, as well as the weight.

I am sure that many readers have come across border line letters which have reached a thickness that makes you wonder, as you pop into the post box, whether it should have actually been stamped as a Large Letter.  Well, if there is ever a time when you wish to remove this doubt then it is when you are sending your wedding invitations.  If an item of mail has not been stamped with enough postage then the local sorting office will more than likely hold your invitation and request that the intended recipient (i.e your wedding guest) makes up the postal costs plus a surcharge.   This is embarrasing enough for the sender but it also means that there will be a delay in your guests receiving their invitations as they will either have to collect them from the sorting office themselves or arrange for them to be redelivered.  Worse still, your invitation will be forgotten about and lost forever.

The reason I bring this up in a blog post is that it is an oh so common occurence.  Many wedding invitations look for innovative ways to spruce up their wedding invite designs by adorning them with flouncy bows or bold embellishments without giving much consideration to the practical elements of sending the invitation.  Remember too that at an invitation may at first appear like a standard Royal Mail ‘Letter’ class but may increase to a ‘large letter’ category through either weight or thickness when you add to the envelope a reply card, a guest information card, and perhaps a gift list sheet as well.

So, if you are unsure about your finished invitations, whether hand made or bought, then be sure to check out both the weight and dimensions.  Criteria for each price band is of course available on the Royal Mail website or you may find the post room at your work will have a ready reckoner size card and scales to check the classification.  If in any doubt then take a finished wedding invitations to your local post office to have it checked out.

Free wedding stationery samples from the Wedding Stationery Showcase

This site (for those interested) used to be a gallery of wedding invitation designs from various UK wedding stationery suppliers.  The concept was simple, suppliers would pay us a monthly fee to be on our site in return they would ship free wedding invitation samples to those customers who requested them.  The problem was that many wedding stationery suppliers were reluctant to pay for the privelege of sending free samples.  In fact, the trend moved away from suppliers offering free samples to getting customers to pay and this is the model for many wedding stationery companies today.  In turn, our site became stale as many suppliers stopped offering their services so we resurrected the site in its current form as a topical wedding stationery information blog.  This is what you are looking at right now.  It has been a huge success and we are very proud of it.

Never one to give up however, we still believe there is room for a portal whereby customers can choose FREE samples from a number of different suppliers in one easy place.   So we have relaunched our original website idea (that we previously launched back in 2003) as the www.wedding-stationery-showcase.com.  How is it different this time ?  Well its not really.  The main difference is that the wedding stationery companies featured on the site do not have to pay us any advertising costs to be on the site so the money they would normally pay in advertising fees can go towards supplying and posting those free samples.

As a footnote, we know that many wedding stationery suppliers read this blog so if they are interested in featuring their designs on the Wedding Stationery Showcase then have a look over on the site for details on how to get your designs in the spotlight.  We are committed to making the project work this time around so will be making regular references to the site on this blog to give it a kick start.

Perfect Wedding Store

Well, the good news is that this popular but redundant site has been snapped up by the team at Belarto who already run the popular Special Days Direct site.  I am sure they are busy working on a new design so I am sure we can expect a revamp to www.perfectweddingstore.co.uk  soon and I am sure they will work hard on retaining the sites popularity in the eyes of Google.

brideandgroomdirect.co.uk

The popular Bride and Groom Direct wedding stationery site owned by the same company as CCA Occasions and Fine Impressions has a fresh makeover for the start of 2009.  The rather sullen cream and gold theme has been ditched in favour of a fresh lilac theme.

Bargain hunters will be pleased to hear that the changes are not just cosmetic and the new site brings a host of new offers with it.  A 5% discount now applies to all online purchases to encourage shoppers to order online rather than via their brochure.  This is a common theme among wedding stationery retailers as it means that the bride enters most of the personalisation text which reduces the amount of work the vendor has to do when typesetting the invites for proofing.  A free Guest Book and Photo album is available on all purchases of £150 and more and all orders placed online qualify for a free prize draw entry to win up to £3000 cash.  The prize draw is not until the 1st December 2009 but would make a wonderful Christmas present.

I was surprised that this lady did not notice that the cards were the same when she ordered the wedding invitations but I would encourage anyone purchasing their wedding stationery in stages to check what other items are available in the range are what they are expecting so they are not disappointed later.  The reason why many wedding stationers duplicate cards within a range is quite obvious… it is usually a commercial decision rather than a design choice as it is father more economical to hold stocks of a range that uses the same core card stock rather than individual items that each need to be inventory controlled.  I have to say that this practice of card cloning across a whole range does not happen often and it tends to occur on the cheaper ranges of wedding stationery.  A more common use of the same card tends to occur only between the Thank You card and Reply Card in a range.  This in fact does make common sense because when your guest is returning your RSVP card then whether they accept or decline they are in essence thanking you for the invitation.

Our sister site, Weddingo, has teamed up with The National Wedding Show to offer 5 lucky readers the chance to win a pair of tickets to either the London Earls Court show on the 26th – 28th September or the Birmingham NEC exhibition on the 10th – 12th October.  For details of the competition click here.  Its easy peasy to enter and it closes on the 31st August 2008.

Now, if you want to see which stationers will be exhibiting at the two events then we have compiled a list below with their stand numbers.  Aren’t we good

Wedding Stationery Exhibitors at London Earls Court 26-28th September

Wedding Stationery Exhibitors at Birmingham NEC 10-12th October

You can choose from the full CCA Occasions range of stationery, Letterpress of Cirencester and they will soon have the full range of Collisons invitations, including the relaunched White Lace collection.  All at vastly discounted prices.

One of the most popular sites of the wedding stationery world- Perfect Wedding Store - have recently stopped taking orders.  I spoke with Matthew Hextall the owner of www.perfectweddingstore.co.uk a couple of years ago and he was a very focused individual with big plans for his website.  Since then, the site underwent a couple of redesigns and grew from strength to strength consistently topping the Google search pages for popular search terms such as Wedding Stationery and Wedding Stationary. 

I tried emailing Matthew and calling him but the lines are dead.  I hope everything is OK with him on a personal level and wish him all the best with his future plans.

This article is the first in a series on wedding stationery etiquette and special thanks goes to The Letter Press of Cirencester for letting us reproduce their guide.  All the images in the articles are Letter press of Cirencester designs which are available from their website.

The Etiquette of Wedding Stationery
The etiquette of wedding stationery should combine convention with convenience. The Letter Press of Cirencester have found that their customers want “to do it the right way”, at the same time as communicating clearly the information guests need. There are, however, different conventions you can choose to follow, as well as different ideas about styles of wording adopted. As a general rule, keep it simple.

Wording of Invitations
What is “correct” wording? There is no black or white answer. Taste is more important than dogma: ‘o’ clock’ is as correct as ‘pm’, but ’3.30 o’clock’ sounds clumsy. ‘To’ and ‘with’ mean the same, but nowadays ‘with’ may sound old-fashioned. ‘At All Saints’, Stanton Fitzwarren’ is as clear as ‘at All Saints’ Church, Stanton Fitzwarren’ and probably looks neater on the page.
Clarity and simplicity are important. There should be no doubt in guests’ minds as the what, where and when of the invitation. However, avoid repetition, such as the following:

at the Church of St Mary, Ampney Crucis,
Cirencester, Gloucestershire
on Saturday, 13th June 2009
at 3 o’clock
and afterwarsd at
Field Barn, Ampney Crucis,
Cirencester, Gloucestershire

R.S.V.P. Field Barn, Ampney Crucis, Cirencester

It is not necessary to repeat the address three times: your guests are intelligent enough to understand the following, simpler in wording and more pleasing in design:

at the Church of St Mary, Ampney Crucis,
on Saturday, 13th June 2009
at 3 o’clock
and afterwards at
Field Barn

R.S.V.P. Field Barn, Ampney Crucis, Cirencester

In Part 2 of this series we will look at the different styles of wording and options available depending on who will be hosting the wedding