What to include in wedding invitations

It's interesting:
"'I used your site to create my wedding speech. ... 'Chaps, just got to say a huge thanks for the help your site gave me preparing for my brother's wedding. As best ..."

A wedding is an important event and milestone in life of the bride and groom. The invitation is an important detail because its the first piece of your wedding anyone will see. The invitation not only lets people know where your wedding and reception will take place, it also gives them a glimpse into the type of wedding you're planning, the colors or theme of your wedding, and the overall atmosphere of the event. There are essential pieces of a traditional invitation that you should include no matter what type of event you are planning.

1. Envelopes

   • A traditional wedding invitation will include three envelopes. The first is the outer envelope. This will be where you put the stamp and address of the guests you are sending the invitation to. Inside this envelope, there should be another envelope called the inner envelope. Typically, depending on the budget of the bride and groom, this envelope is lined with a color, generally one of the wedding colors. On the front, the names of the guests should be written and all other components of the invitation should be placed inside this envelope. When you are ready to mail the invitation, the inner envelope should be placed unsealed inside of the outer envelope, which is then sealed and placed in the mail. The third envelope is a small envelope that is self-addressed and stamped to the person handling the R.S.V.P.s for the event. This envelope allows guests to mail back a response to your invitation.

   Traditional Essentials

   • Other pieces that should be included with all wedding invitations include a reception card, a response card and a map or directions. The reception card is only necessary if your wedding and reception will take place at two different locations. The response card will be returned to you or the person taking care of receiving the R.S.V.P.s. This is the card that guests will send back in the self-addressed envelopes to indicate whether they are coming to the wedding or not and how many people will be attending. A map to the location is also necessary, especially for those guests who might be coming from out of town and are not familiar with the area. The map should include directions to both the wedding ceremony site and the reception site, if they are going to be held in two different places.

   Additional Components

   • There are some additional components that you might want to consider including in your wedding invitation. For instance, if you are planning on serving two types of meat for dinner, you might want to know ahead of time what your guests are going to want to eat. This can help control costs with your caterer. You can do this by including a meal choice either on your R.S.V.P. card or on an additional insert card known as a meal card, which should be included when your guests send back the R.S.V.P. This way you can not only get an accurate head count for your wedding, but also plan an accurate count to see how many of your guests will want fish and how many want chicken.

     An accommodation card is another item you might want to include. The accommodation card contains a list of names, addresses and phone numbers of local hotels and rental-car companies. These types of cards should be included for guests who are coming from out of town. Providing them with the information is a general courtesy to your guests.

     Last, but certainly not least, the new trend for invitations is to include a card with the address to a website that the bride and groom have established in order to make things easier on their guests with Web access. On the site, the bride and groom can include all sorts of information about accommodations, the rehearsal dinner, maps and directions, the theme of the wedding and many other elements. They might even establish the website as another means of quickly providing an R.S.V.P. for the event.

Source: www.ehow.com

Tags: your wedding, bride groom, your guests, might want, should included, this envelope