Ready for the week? We are! So excited to share 25 MORE, completely random, wedding paper tips for 2013! Ready. Set. Go!
- Remember that U.S. postage increased on January 27, 2013.
- When determining quantities for your save the dates and stationery, slow down and remember to think in terms of HOUSEHOLDS and not guest count. This will prevent you from ordering tons of extras.
- Your wedding ceremony programs are typically shared between couples. Keep this in mind when determining a quantity.
- Think about including wedding signage as a line item on your list of stationery.
From the Plunge Project
- Check out Wedding Invite Love when shopping around for your invitations. Tracy Osborn and her team have a wonderful, regional catalog full of paper eye candy.
- If you cannot afford hand lettering for your envelopes, consider just having your place cards commissioned. This will feel very personal to your guests, who often save this particular item after the wedding/event.
- Think about incorporating polaroids into your wedding if appropriate.
- If your invitation envelopes have wax seals, are bulky or are just too stinking cute to be trusted to the postal machines, consider asking to have them hand cancelled.
- If your wedding is color critical, educate yourself about the Pantone Color Matching System so you can feel comfortable speaking about your colors to the invitation designer and/or printer.
- If your wedding has a sensitive budget, be sure to take advantage of printables for your wedding... Many of which are free downloads.
- Try to have your thank you cards printed at the same time as your wedding invitations. Why? Because some of your guests will send you gifts right away and its better to send out your thank you's as you receive the gifts so that you don't have a seemingly insurmountable task waiting for you later.
- Consider having your invitations tied with string.
- As you plan your invites, begin to educate yourself on basic printing terminology.
- Understand that as beautiful as metallic stocks are, they do have limitations. Computerized calligraphy, even when utilizing black ink will appear dull on this mica-coated stock.
- 100% cotton papers are the finest quality and the best kind of envelope for hand calligraphy. To me anyway. Crane's is a company that provides 100% cotton stationery materials.
- Shop around for your invitation and calligraphy vendor by visiting Yelp, doing Google searches and asking former brides who they had the best experience with.
- Always secure physical proofs and samples whenever possible.
- Typical wedding invitations, unless you are doing something very unique should cost $.65 each. With the new increase on 1.27, these $.65 stamps will most likely need $.1 increment stamps to go with it. Think about it. If one ounce goes up to $.46 and the additional ounces cost remains unchanged at $.20, that's $.66. We'll see what happens here, but the math doesn't lie.
- Screen reviews of any of your stationery is not as accurate as reviewing a print out. If you did not receive physical proofs, take the time to print out your pdf files and carefully read them over before providing an ok.
- Have more than one person read over/proof your materials.
- An easy way to catch mistakes on your invites or day of materials is to read the words backwards. Sounds weird, but its a great trick.
- If your reception location is in an out of the way place, take the time to have a custom direction card designed. Yes, everyone has GPS, but still...
- It's never too early to start thinking about your wedding invitation wording.
- If you are committed to being a D.I.Y. bride, check out some basic info and also follow our Wedding D.I.Y. and Crafts Pinterest board.
- Don't be afraid to ask for options on any and everything. You won't know if something else is available unless you ask your supplier.
Whew! Ok, that's it til' 2014! Take care, --ct
