Planning a wedding can be overwhelming. There are many decisions to make. You have to figure out what you are going to do from decorations to coming up with wedding cake ideas. You even have to decide between all of the different honeymoon locations before it is all over.

One of the most important things are the wedding invitations. It should be treated as a priority because they must be sent out far in advance. The invitations are the first thing that your guests see. They convey the tone, mood and theme of your wedding. One should be able to have a glimpse of what your special day will be like from the invitations.

The first thing you should do in regards to the invitations is to make an Excel sheet of your guest list. This is very important. Regardless of if you decide to have your invitations created by a professional or if you decide to do them by hand you will need to have this. Of course you could always go old-school and simply make a handwritten list of your guests names and addresses, but if you have the capability to make an Excel sheet it will make your life a lot easier. With this file you will be able to create the labels or directly print onto your envelopes your guests names and addresses. If you decide to have them created professionally you will be able to send them this list and everything should be correct if you give a correct list.

The reason why I say that this should be a priority, is because it’s very time consuming. You will need to decide how you want your guests names on the envelopes. Some of your friends may have nicknames and you may want to use their full name on the envelopes.  Some of your friends may have moved, so you may not know their new addresses. Basically, there will most likely be some research on your part needed in order to complete the list. Not to mention that it just takes some time to type it all out. You will most likely not be able to get this all done in one weekend, it will probably be a process in waiting for people to get back to you, and spending your time collecting and typing the data. It is because of this that this task should not be put off to the end. If this is done it could keep you from being able to mail your invitations on time.

The next thing you need to do is to have some idea of what your wedding theme is. This will help you in deciding what colors and decoration your invitations will have. You may decide that since you are having your wedding on the beach, it will make the most sense for you to have beach wedding invitations or Hawaiian wedding invitations. You could decide since you have a very silly personality that you want some funky wedding invitations. You may decide that a sheek, modern theme is your style  and that black and white wedding invitations will fit the bill. Whatever you decide you should also keep in mind of course your partner, but also if your mother is going to be a huge deciding factor. I say this because mothers do tend to get their hearts set on certain things, so it is important to keep them in the loop so that you won’t have problems later down the line, especially because your parents may be helping in paying for the big day.

When you are trying to make a decision about what type of invitation you are going to buy, you should have some idea of what your head count will be. This will help you make a choice. Maybe you really like handmade invitations, and you’re thinking about do it yourself wedding invitations, but if you have 600 people coming to your wedding this is going to be very difficult. I would say that you should not make handmade invitations unless you have less than 150 invitations to make. Any more than that can be very complicated. Obviously, you should have some type of budget in mind. Invitations can be very expensive. You should know if you just want the invitation and RSVP card, or if you need other things, such as a map, an informational card about hotel reservations, or if there’s anything else that you will need to accompany it. Of course these things will all contribute to the cost. You may even want to think about having your gift registry printed out nicely on a card so that you don’t take away from the invitation. You also don’t want to cheapen the invitation after spending money on them to make them look nice by putting a chintzy map inside. You may decide not to include a map, really it is up to you.

It is also important to have an idea of what type of wedding invitation envelopes you will use. Knowing a few things about envelopes will help guide you in your decision making process whenever it comes to picking sizes, dimension and creating your guest list.

When having created wedding invitations in the past I have had many brides become worried about tradition. There are many rules out there that will tell you many different things. It is hard to tell what people expect. I personally feel that you should know what you’re going for and take these rules into context of that. If you are going for a traditional wedding, then use traditional rules. If you’re in for a funky wedding, then don’t worry so much about the rules. The most important thing is that your invitations tell your guests about your good news in a fashion that conveys the style of your wedding, while being beautiful. Beauty and style trumps rules any day. There are so many new and creative ways that people are making their invitations, the rules just don’t matter that much anymore. I believe that if you make sure to address the envelope’s with your guest’s proper names, that is one of the most important rules to follow, unless of course you have a really good reason for not doing so. It really is all about context, use the rules that apply to your situation.

When buying wedding invitations online, make sure that you order sample wedding invitations before putting in the full order. This is important because you may catch a mistake that you hadn’t noticed before and you will know what the invitations will look like. Once an order of invitations are printed, resources will have been used. There is no way for those resources to be regained, so you will most likely be responsible for paying for them if it was not the designer’s fault. You will probably have to sign off on the sample before the invitations are printed, in fact it would be irresponsible for a designer to not send you a sample first. The only way that one would, would be if you were in a big rush. At that point they would probably have you sign something saying to the effect that they are not responsible if you are unhappy with the product unless, there was a mistake on their part.

Your wedding invitations are some of the most important invitations you’ll ever send to your family and friends. Make them special, make them about you and your new life with your partner.