Wedding Invitation Assembly Guide

Wedding Invitation Assembly Guide

E-mail Guide

Link To Guide

Print Guide

Single Page View

This wedding invitation guide is about function, not form. It's about substance and not style. There is nothing in here about the paper stock to use, what color schemes are in style or how to fragrantly word your pieces. What is in this guide, is help to make assembling and mailing all those pretty pieces easier. Its focus is on properly compiling all the pieces of your invitations once you have decided on all the stylistic elements that you want them to include.

While style elements of invitations are important, there are some practical things to keep in mind when selecting all the pieces that will go into your invitations. So, even though invitations should be assembled and mailed four to six weeks prior to your wedding, this guide provides tips to use before purchasing your invitations.

Therefore, give this guide a quick read prior to even window-shopping for pieces. For your wedding to have the invitations of your dreams, you must make a determined, concious effort to make it happen. Organization and planning are key. Without them you will be left with invitations you have to settle for.

To make the assembly process simple, break it down into these four steps:

As you read through this guide keep in mind that this is your wedding, those are your invitations and the only right or wrong way to do something is how you say it should be done. Be sure to note anything you want to change, include and/or omit with your invitations. Use this guide as a starting point.

For example, one step of this guide covers addressing the outer invitation envelope. You may or may not have a vision of how you want that exactly done. Maybe you want your invitations addressed in calligraphy or maybe you have a particular color of ink in mind. Write all that down. There are so many details involved in preparing invitations that it is best that you write a set of instructions so that your invitations are just like you envision them.

While assembling your invitations, you should print out and use the BridalTrack Invitation Checklist. It is an outline of this guide and is a perfect place to notate all your specific ideas. With it, you can systematically work toward your perfect invitations and check off every detail you want included.

Step 1:   Test Pieces

E-mail Guide

Link To Guide

Print Guide

Single Page View

The response card needs to fit in the response envelope. The response envelope, the invitation, the invitation tissue, and any other included item (i.e. map) must fit inside the inner invitation envelope. Finally, be sure that the inner invitation envelope fits inside the outer invitation envelope. Then, and only then, purchase all your materials.

In fact, take it one step further and take an invitation out for a test drive. Mail a completed invitation to yourself so you can get the full experience of receiving your wedding invitation. This test will give you an opportunity to see problems that you might not otherwise think of occurring--an envelope so thin its contents shows through, the inability to easily extract certain items, the ink bleeding, and lots of other issues. What you want to do is find and prevent any errors that your recipients might encounter.

Finally, check your pieces immediately upon receipt from the printer. Make sure the colors are correct, the paper stock is what you ordered, the invitations are not misspelled and every detail about them meets your approval. Do not wait until you start to assemble and mail them, check the pieces for errors immediately. The sooner you spot one, the sooner it will be corrected.

Step 1½:   Acquire Postage

Don't overlook the obvious. Just because you have all the pieces of the invitation, doesn't mean you have everything you need to send them out. Making time for stamp selection prior to mailing them will give you an opportunity to select the postage you want.

A new and interesting idea is www.photo.stamps.com which allows you to customize postage with an image you select. You can even include your engagement photo right on the stamp itself and have that stamp's value be exactly what you need it to be. Of course these take time to produce and you should visit that site for more information.

To be safe, take your sample invitation and get it weighed to see exactly how much in postage you will need. You do not want every single invitation returned because you were short a couple of cents on postage. Hopefully, your invitations will qualify for standard 1st class service. This means that you will only need one stamp and will have a wide variety of standard stamps from which to choose.

Don't overlook the less obvious either. If including a postage paid return envelope for response cards, you will need postage for those as well. You do not want to assemble your invitations only to have to pry them all open to affix a stamp to the response envelope.

Be organized and be prepared.

Step 2:   Address Envelopes

E-mail Guide

Link To Guide

Print Guide

Single Page View

There are three envelopes per invitation that need to be addressed: the RSVP response envelope, the inner invitation envelope and the outer invitation envelope. Customarily, the inner and outer invitation envelopes should be handwritten. To facilitate this and to prevent any unnecessary marring on the pieces each holds, be sure to write on them while they are empty. The RSVP response envelope, which will be mailed to you, can be addressed by hand or with a label.

The most effecient way to address all these envelopes is to break this step into smaller parts so that multiple people can work together. To do this properly you should assign certain guests on your list to writers as opposed to assigning certain envelopes to writers. That way, one writer will address all the envelopes of a guest (i.e. John Smith's inner envelope and John Smith's outer envelope), instead of one writer addressing all the envelopes of a certain type (i.e. John Smith's outer invitation envelope, Sally Green's outer invitation envelope, etc.).

This way all the handwriting on all the envelopes of a guest's invitation will be the same. Doing so ensures continuity and gives each invitation one look.

Do not have one person address the inner invitation envelopes and another address the outer envelopes. No matter how good each individual's handwriting, an invitation done that way would have different handwriting styles and give it a mixed look . So the key to breaking this up is to have one writer complete all the addressing of an invitation.

Inner And Outer Invitation Envelopes

The scope of this guide involves only the assembling of your invitations not the addressing of them. Therefore, for a guide to addressing your invitations please see the BridalTrack Addressing Guide. It details all the title assigning rules, types of guests and exceptions to all the rules of addressing invitations. You should review that for the specifics of how each guest will have each of their envelopes addressed.

For a quick calculation of how a specific guest's invitations should appear, try the BridalTrack Addressing Calculator. With it, you simply type in your guests' data and click a button to have it generate how an invitation should be addressed.

For assembly purposes here is what you need to know about the outer invitation envelope: It is the workhorse envelope. It holds every other piece of the invitation and protects them from the cold, cruel elements of our postal system--metering machines, mailbags, other mail, and everything else on its journey to its recipient.

The outer envelope also provides the data required to get it to that destination: the name and address. While calligraphy and fancy, looping writing is fine for the inner invitation envelope, the outer invitation envelope requires discernable writing. It can still be elegant and fancy, but it absolutely must be legible or it might defeat its main purpose.

Also, on the back fold of the outer invitation envelope the return address should appear. It is acceptable to write the return address by hand or to use labels. It is not necessary to include a return name, just the return address.

The inner invitation envelope is essentially a presentation envelope, it serves as an elegant holder of the invitation itself. Since it is inside the outer envelope as it goes through the mail system, it does not need to be sealed. This allows the receipent a nice keepsake of the wedding and allows them to avoid any accidental tearing that may occur with opening it.

Because it is not used or even seen by the post office, it does not have the addressee's entire address, just their title and last name. Again, for specific examples of how to address both the inner and outer invitation envelopes please see the BridalTrack Addressing Guide.

Response Envelope

The response envelope's purpose is to help you track the invitations you send out. The first thing you must decide is the address these are to be returned. An obvious choice is the bride's address, but if another person (i.e. bride's mother, wedding coordinator, groom, etc.) is in charge of this or a post office box set up specifically for this, then another address is fine.

To avoid postal errors, use the address as both the main and the return addresses on your response cards. This way, if the stamp falls off, if it is metered wrong or any other postal error occurs, it will still find its way back to you.

Suppose your guest returns a response card that just has the 'Yes I am attending' box checked, but no name or identifying information. Or if they illegibly scribbled their name in the space provided? You will have no idea from whom you got that response. A good guest list should assign each of your guests a reference number. This number can be lightly, in pencil, written on the back corner of the response envelope. This way when it returns you can use that reference number to go to your list and update it with that person's response and know exactly who it was from.

For more information on this reference number trick and how to properly set up your contact list, see the BridalTrack Chronological Guide. It details how to assign numbers, how to use them to track responses and how to use them to quickly search your contact list in general.

Step 3:   Compile Pieces

E-mail Guide

Link To Guide

Print Guide

Single Page View

Get anything that can soil the pieces that make up your invitations off the table. Don't be forced to rewrite a set of envelopes just because some glue or soda got onto them. Make sure your area has been wiped clean and then you can start.

To begin, lay the invitation card face up on the table. Place the invitation tissue on top of it. Next, the response envelope goes face down. Lift up the response envelope's flap and tuck the response card underneath it. Place any additional items (i.e. map, driving directions) on top. Open up the inner invitation envelope and insert everything that you just piled up.

Inside the inner invitation envelope this should be the order: invitation card on the bottom, then tissue, response envelope, response card, and on top should be any additional pieces you have chosen to include. If that is not the order, fix it so that it is.

Finally, without sealing it, place the inner invitation envelope inside the outer invitation envelope. The inner invitation envelope will remain unsealed. Seal the outer envelope, apply postage and that invitation is complete.

Form An Assembly Line

The most effecient way to address envelopes and compile invitations is by working as a team, or teams. The key is assigning the tasks properly and making sure that everyone knows how to complete their part.

The best way is to form teams made of writers and assemblers. The writers will address each set of envelopes that go with an invitation (response card, invitation envelope and outer envelope) and the assemblers will apply postage and insert all the other pieces of the invitation. Since each task can be quite complicated and have specific rules, this allows everyone to focus on being an expert for the task they are assigned.

Generally, assembling takes less time than writing, so it is better to have more writers than assemblers. Again though, this is your wedding, those are your invitations and you are familiar with the strengths of the people you have helping you. So, however you think the task will best be accomplished to your satisfaction is the way to go.

Step 4:   Mail Invitations

E-mail Guide

Link To Guide

Print Guide

Single Page View

Nothing too obsessive compulsive, just a quick spot check is needed. As long as you set up the assembly process properly and methodically worked through it, have confidence that you did them all correctly.

The second to last step, is to review your notes. Remember that list you made about how your perfect invitations will look? Get it and review it. Make sure everything you envisioned for your invitations was accomplished. When you are happy with your invitations, that's all that matters.

If you have made it this far and the invitations are up to your standards, you are ready to mail them. To save your outer invitation envelopes some wear, get them hand canceled at the post office. If you just dump your invitations in a mail receptacle they get feed through a metering machine like the other 500 million pieces of mail the post office handles daily. By having a postal clerk hand cancel your invitations, you give them a headstart to arriving in perfect condition.

Once you leave post office all that planning, organizing and attention to detail has finally paid off and you are finished. Of course, now begins RSVP response tracking. For that, we suggest more planning, organization attention to detail and the Track RSVP Responses Page of the BridalTrack Chronological Guide.

Good luck, and be sure to print off a copy of the BridalTrack Checklist to help you work through assembling your invitations.