The Honor of Your Presence Is Requested...

Designing our invitation suite was one of my favorite parts of planning our wedding. I worked with Anna of Prim + Pretty Prints and it was a fantastic decision. She was so thorough and willing to help make my vision come to life. We worked with her to create not only our invitation suite, but our wedding crest, as well.

Rachel Elisabeth Photography

I found a premade design that fit with our color scheme and the general feel I was looking for—elegant and simple. Anna helped perfect the wording, font, and added our crest in. The wording of our invitation was:

Mr. and Mrs. John Knittel

Request the pleasure of your company

at the marriage of their daughter

Taylor Nicole Knittel

to

Joseph Harrison Jenkins

son of Mr. and Mrs. Tracy Jenkins

Saturday, the fourth of May

two thousand nineteen

at five o'clock in the evening

The Pavilion at Carriage Farm

address

Dinner and dancing to follow

The wording of the invitation was difficult for me, and I stressed about it much more than I probably should have. Let's dissect the decisions we made...

• Traditionally, the names that go first are those who are hosting. Both of our parents and us contributed to the cost of the wedding, so no one in particular was "hosting," so we went with my parents' names.
  
  
• The request... this was tricky to me. Usually, "the honor of your presence" is used when being married in a church. We were married outside at our venue, so I opted for "the pleasure of your company." It felt formal but still warm.
  
  
• Typically, if the bride's parents' names are listed at the top, her last name is not included. It's not a regret of mine, but if I did it again, I would probably leave off my maiden name.
  
  
• We wanted to include Harrison's parents' names, so we opted to use the wording "son of..."
  
  
• For the date and time, we leaned towards the more formal wording. We chose to say "the fourth of May" instead of "May fourth" and we spelled out 2019. (Note: don't use "and" when spelling out the year!) Traditionally, the evening starts at 5:00, so if we were married at 4:30 (as we originally planned), it would read, "at half after four in the afternoon."
  
  
• For the location's address, the zip code is not typically included. 
  
  
• Reception line... if the reception is happening at a different location, a separate reception card is included with formal invitations. Our reception was at the same venue, so we could have said "reception to follow." I felt "dinner and dancing to follow" was a bit more lighthearted and fun. If you are not serving a full meal, there are ways to word that, too.

In addition to our invitation, we included a details card and an RSVP card.

The details card included information on the reception, the hotel block, and our wedding website.

A lot of people nowadays are trending towards online RSVPs. While that would have been easier in a lot of ways, we opted for physical RSVPs. I wanted the formality and I also love getting mail! If you use RSVP cards, be ready for quite a few to not be returned (although I hear from friends who have used the online RSVP system that this is still the case). I created a spreadsheet that I entered the information in as they were received. You can also have them sent to someone else to handle (your maid-of-honor, mom, etc.)—just be sure to chat with them, first!

I ended up ordering our invitations, details cards, and RSVP cards as a digital file, then having them printed at a local print shop. After checking prices, this was the most cost-effective route for us. Invitations can be expensive! I really liked this decision because it allowed me to see the invitations in hand before I had to get all of them. I had proofs printed for free (love local businesses!) and was able to see that the colors weren't coming out correctly. I was able to have the designer saturate the colors a bit more so they came out perfectly!

I also ordered belly bands. I purchased those from the designer directly to ensure that they were the right size.

My mom and I worked on assembling the invitations a little at a time. I printed the addresses on the envelopes and used a stamp that said "The Future Mr. & Mrs. Jenkins" with my address at the time for both the return addresses on our save the dates and invitations, and the address on the RSVP envelopes. 

Postage was a big cost. The price of stamps went up from $0.50 to $0.55 the January before our wedding, so the fall before I purchased a bunch of forever stamps which saved me a bit. For our invitations, I had to be a bit extra, so I searched for old postage to buy to give our envelopes more character. I'm not sure I would make this same choice if I did it again (all I can think of is that they're sitting in a landfill or recyling facility somewhere!), but they were beautiful! 

Overall, my invitation suite ended up just as I wished. Make sure to order quite a few extra to have for mistakes and to save!