Vegas Invite - You are Invited

Retro Red Vegas

A guided tour has to start with the iconic Vegas sign in lights, which is a common choice of design from many wedding stationery designers.  I have chosen to showcase the design above  from You are Invited because it is available in a number of colours.  Once the invites are ordered, the company also offer Menu cards, Order of the Day/Service, table plan and place cards.  I think your guests may have a migraine by the end of the wedding celebrations if you choose the full compliment, but one or two items from the set will certainly set the scene.  You will find another couple of variants on this style on the You are Invited website, including a more subtle red retro version which I think looks much more stylish.  Mind you, that could just be an indicator that the a full on Vegas wedding isn’t really my cup of tea.

Las Vegas - I Do Personalise

Another Vegas sign but this time with the lights switched off.  The novelty with this one is in the custom personalisation.  I Do Personalise is brought to you by the same printers as the CCA Occasions design that we feature on our own Olivia Samuel site.  The designs are digitally printed and given a mirror gloss finish – pefect for some Vegas glamour.  This design really does put your name up in lights and the bridal couples names can be changed and proofed instantly on the I Do Personalise website.  Unfortunately, there is no variation in design between the other items of stationery in the set but then, as I mentioned above, maybe you only want to stick with the Vegas theme for the invitations anyway.

We Go Together Custom Design

This Stars and Stripes theme is a custom design from wedding stationery designers We Go Together.  Rather than have a stock portfolio of designs their approach is more personal and they will work with you to create a unique design just for you.  I love the two red stars representing I assume the married couple and the striking use of white on red text of the invitation wording to form the stripes of the US flag. 

Vegas Invitation from Dinkie Dynamo

After a little more research I discover a colleague here on the gallery actually blogged about a Vegas invitation a couple of years ago.  So this design from deserves another quick mention here.   You can read the full Gallery write up here

Vegas Zazzle Invitation Montage

We will round up this article with a montage of designs from Zazzle.  Zazzle is basically a printing company that showcase designs from thousands of designers.  They basically let the designers focus on their creative side by outsourcing the print and fulfilment.  Because Zazzle deal with all sorts of industries the one thing you may find is a lack of expertise in the wedding area and you may be limited somewhat by their online personalisation tool.  That said they have a large range of Vegas style invitation designs so it is worth a look.

Request a song card

Now here is a fab idea that I wish I could claim to have come up with myself but I stumbled across it on the You and You and Your Wedding Forum. It is common to send a Reply Card with your invitations but I do not imagine many people have thought of sending a “request a song at the reception card”. There are a number of wedding stationery ensembles such as the Simplicity range from Collisons that includes a reply card and a guest information card in a pocket fold design. This guest information card would be perfectly suited for such a card.

If your chosen wedding stationery range does not include a guest information card (or if the Guest Information card is too big for the reply card envelope) then take a look at some of the cheap low run business card printers out there. Many printers offer a cheap business card print on first orders because they hope to get repeat orders. Vistaprint, for example are running a promotion whereby you get 250 Free personalised business cards. All you pay for is the postage which is under £4.00. You can design your request a song cards online and the neat little business card size cards would fit neatly inside any reply card.

The first dance of course will be especially chosen by you and your partner but your guests will appreciate being part of the remaining play list and for those who are already married it may rekindle some of their own wedding memories if they choose a song that is special to them. You will always get a few jokers who will request a funny song or heavy metal track but of course its entirely up to you which ones you choose to pass on to the band or DJ. Its your day after all !

CCA Occasions Wedding Websites

The popularity of personal wedding websites has grown enormously in recent years now that so many people own a broadband enabled PC.  The bridal couple set up a ”wedding website” to convey important details of the wedding such as venue directions, menu, and even an online RSVP form.  Online sites make the setup of these flashy sites childsplay and means the bridal couple do not need  any web design skills to create a very professional looking site.  So if you set up a wedding website then the best place to advertise this to your guests is through the invitation and it is not uncommon to list the url of the wedding website at the foot of the wedding invitation as a resource for your guests to do a bit of further reading should they have the inclination (or capability)

Now,  since the wedding website is so interlinked with the invitation why are there not more wedding invitation suppliers offering matching wedding websites?  It would be a welcome offering for many bride and groom if they could coordinate their dream wedding invitation with a wedding website that follows the same theme.  I can only think of one wedding invitation designer I have come across recently that has tried to bridge this gap.  Millbank and Kent offer a wedding information page that matches their stationery but the page offered is quite limited and lacks the features of many of the latest wedding website suppliers. 

Perhaps it would be easier if some of the wedding website suppliers approached the wedding stationery companies to produce some matching themes.  I notice that Weddingpath offer a couple of designs from the popular CCA Occasions range (Love is Pink and Love Is Cream) so lets hope we see some more in the future.

Ok! so you love picking up the latest celebrity magazines to see who’s marrying who, what, when, where and quite frankly Coleen,  why?  (sorry, I’m sure he’s a lovely bloke).  Now you can see yourself and your partner on the front cover in this Oi! invitation from Moonpig which you can upload your own photos into and customise yourself.  The price for the standard card where you have the front cover as the magazine cover with the card opening out normally is £2.99.  They are certainly novel and I must admit I was quite surprised to find something like this on Moonpig, seriously guys, pay the money, get a better advertising agency!

Many couples do things differently today than they did a generation ago and living together first and having a baby often comes before marriage.   Fortunately not too many people frown on the order of life’s events these days otherwise I for one would have been in trouble for doing things the wrong way around.  For this reason there are many couples who are looking for ways to let their child be a big part of their special day and have a real involvement in the planning and the day itself.  In fact if you approach things the right way this can make the whole event even more special and will bring the whole family closer together.

Celebrations Plus have introduced a great wedding invitation which helps do just that.  Rather than deliberate over whether the wedding invitations should come from the brides parents, both sets of parents, or whether you should be hosting your own why not buck the traditional etiquette altogether and let your child or children be the invitors.  The design is called “Mum and Dad’s Wedding Invitation” and features a childishly appropriate sketch of mum and dad in either gold or silver foil with the words “Mummy and Daddy are Getting Married” underneath.

I think this is invite is a great idea and your kids will absolutely love the idea of inviting all the guests to their mum and dad’s wedding.  You may struggle to find the correct text to go inside but I reckon it should be something along the following lines :

Hannah Price and Thomas Price
request the pleasure of the company of

…………………………………………

at the marriage of their Mummy and Daddy

Lisa Price
with
Matthew Price

at {Place of Ceremony}

on {Wedding Date}
at {Wedding Time}

and afterwards at a reception to be held at
{Reception Address}