Invitation Suites & Etiquette with your New England Tent Girl

By Your New England Tent Girl

Hello from the beautiful Green Mountains of Vermont. Spring has finally sprung! Where ever you may be reading this from, sit down and pour yourself a glass of wine. Turn off the tv and turn on the radio to the light rock station. It’s time to relax, time to let go and enjoy the things around you. I love spring as some of my favorite flowers are in bloom, like the Lillis and Trillium! The sense of long summer nights is in the air, and I finally get to go outside on my deck, after a long cold winter and look up at a
star-filled sky without getting icicles on my nose!
If you’re here reading this blog, you are here because of either just getting engaged or your soon to be married. You could also be a wedding vendor looking for insight after a long hard wedding season. Whoever you are, this is your time, and I thank you for clicking onto this blog.

It’s all about the invitations.

For me, the wedding Invitation Suites & Etiquette sets the tone. It is the one piece that allows your guests the first glimpse of what your wedding will be like. It dictates everything from what they will wear to what they will eat for dinner. The Invitation tells your guests your story and allows them to join in your journey. There is no one set style of Invitation, and therefore each couple gets to create their own with the stationer. When you create an invitation, you’re allowing your guests a chance to understand what you want them to experience. It can be formal, semi-casual, or just casual and each design shows that. Pricing for each suite varies depending on whom you work with from $5500 and well over $15,000 depending on quality, quantity, and design.

So, what exactly is in a wedding stationery suite? It’s not just a simple white piece of paper. Your Invitation is created and crafted by a fantastic stationery person that can put in words, artwork, and in color what your day will be like. The suite will consist of several elements.

Your Invitation that gives them the who, what, where, and when!
Your RSVP card that allows them to respond for how many guests and what they will eat
Directions Card that shoes where everything is
Accommodations card of where people can stay
Both the inner and out envelopes
A reception card if you’re getting married at one location and the wedding is at the other
The Thank you cards
As a small note you can stay with stationary and do escort cards & place cards, table numbers, signage, and more so it is all cohesive

Now that we know what an invitation suite is and what goes into it let’s chat about the wedding etiquette of it. I remember when I got married, I had no clue about what goes where and how you are supposed to state things, so I took an Emily Post class and did tons of research along with working with my amazing stationer who guides you along the process of wedding wording.

Always have who is hosting on your invites and depending on the formality of your wedding will depend on how you say Mr. & Mrs. Along those same lines the person who is paying for the overall event will be the first person you put on the invite. A great place to look at how to do this is: https://www.invitationconsultants.com/sw-wedding.aspx

Once you know how you want to invite, make sure you have all the essential wedding details, this may sound easy but often can get overlooked. You will need to have the time, date, year, and location(s) so that people know who, want, when, and where.

From there you move into your RSVP card, and this needs to have proper wording. The RSVP will include the number of guests and what they choose to eat. When it comes to RSVP’s especially today, many are choosing to have guests RSVP on their wedding website. All the same, info still pertains, but now your guests get the chance to go to your website and learn more. The one caveat that I always see here is that there are still a number of people out there that would rather RSVP through the mail vs. the computer as it can feel less formal. That being said before you send out your overall suite think about who is coming to your wedding and their age ranges.

Moving onto the next piece, the Directional card. Don’t assume just because you put on your location that everyone will know where it is. I live in Vermont and still get lost! Your guests need to know how to get from point a to point b, and in this card, or yes on the RSVP website. It needs to be clearly written so that they can easily find it. I never rely on google maps as it is always trying to put me in a corn-field, so think about where you live and how the guests will get there.

The last piece that I am going to chat about is what goes on the accommodations card. The invitation card is meant for the people who are staying out of town, and it needs to have where all the room blocks are, how to book using your last name, and the date they need to book by. The accommodations card can also house the transportation info, and this can be anything from a bus schedule to a weekend itinerary. A quick side note, you and your planner, should send all hotels a timeline of events and timing of transportation. Please don’t assume your guests will bring your invite with them.

We hope you enjoy reading about invitation suites & etiquette, and we wish you many happy memories to come!

Jackie Watson | Your New England Tent-girl