Help! My wedding invitations are making me nuts. My fiance and I finally decided to just make them using a kit from Michaels, so I have been typing all day trying to figure out wording and spacing and things like that. My kit includes the actual invitation and three different sized cards to include in a little "pocket" envelope. Right now I have the smallest cards being used as the RSVPs (they came with envelopes for this size). The medium cards being used as reception cards to tell the time and location of the reception, as it is a different location than our church. The largest card is blank right now. We have direction cards from our church, our reception site, and the hotel we booked. Half of our guests will be from out of town. We have rooms reserved and a shuttle bus. My fiance would like to use the larger card to write directions from the church to hotel and church to reception. I also need to inform guests of the hotel rooms and how to book one. I think that's way too much info for one card. I know I could just type it on a regular piece of paper and include that, but my invites already have these three cards plus three direction papers going in them. I think that's paper overload, not to mention more postage!! Help, what to do??
Could you put the directions for the reception on the reception card? Perhaps on the back? If not, I think you can get all that information on the larger card. Use short phrases and not long, flowery language.
I agreee with Miss Celia-- inform everyone of a site where they can find the info, and eliminate some of the paper-- and the aggravation?? Or get some cutesy floral paper, and include it all on one page, included in the inner envelope.
Truthfully, I don't think you need that many maps. Maybe the one to the first event, the church. Most people use MapQuest or something like that anyway. I have never used a map that I got as part of an invitation. I would just do hotel information and that's it. People can either use the Internet or talk to others at the church about how to get where.
My only concern is that many older people in my family would rely on that information...they wouldn't/couldn't go online.
Yes, it depends how many older people you are inviting that don't use the Internet. For my wedding, either I knew that people used the Internet or else I figured they would travel with or call someone else who knew where the event was. It totally depends on your family. Just keep in mind that the more you put in the envelope, the more it could cost to send
Thank you, TeacherGrl7, for inviting all of us at A to Z but alas I can not make it I am busy that day
I wish I could remember what I did 20+ years ago. All of dh's family & friends were from out of town, actually out of state. I do remember that we made wedding bells with our names on them to put on the hotel room doors. We may have just let the moms tell the out of town guests where to get a hotel room. I'm sure we had maps, but I don't remember.
Does the 'kit' offer suggestions on how to use the various cards? The simpler the better in terms of the extra cards...
The kit does name the three cards- small is "rsvp," medium is "reception" and large is "directions." JustMe, that's my concern, too. My fiance suggested a website and eliminating all the extra paper, but I know there are family members that are not internet savvy enough to navigate. I did consider making a list of those that I thought would require everything in a paper copy, and only including it all in their specific invitations. But then....I don't WANT a wedding website for anything except directions. I don't have a registry and I you cannot find my fiance or I online ANYWHERE, and I'd like to keep it that way. Is it weird to have a website where the only thing on it is directions?
Are you doing programs for the ceremony? You could always just include directions from the ceremony to the hotel, etc, in that, or just have them printed and available at the ceremony for your guests. I don't think you have to put them all in the invitation, especially if you have a shuttle bus since I'd guess a lot of your OOT guests will take advantage of that. I'd just put the hotel reservation info on. You could also ask the front desk at the hotel to have directions available (that you provide), or they will probably even be able to put them in the guests' room before they arrive. We did welcome gift bags for our OOT guests and the hotel put them in their rooms (I think - or maybe they just gave them to them at check-in). I'd keep it simple and just put directions to the ceremony and maybe to the reception, but leave out the hotel info. People can find that on their own or contact you if need be about that. One couple we know put the directions to their reception in the program and included little memorable sights for us to check out on the way, aka the restaurant where they had their first date, the office where the husband works, etc. It was kind of cute and fun.
BettyRubble, thanks for those great ideas! It never even occurred to me to use the programs.... the church is printing them up for us free of charge, but I'm sure they wouldn't mind if I asked someone to stuff them with a paper before handing them out. I like the idea of putting directions in the welcome bags at the hotel, but many of our guests will probably be driving from out of state right to the church, and then not know how to get to the hotel from there afterwards. The program thing just might work....
