Bridal Guide: Invitations Are a Glimpse Into Your Wedding Day

Pick a Wedding Style: With your partner, decide on your wedding style. Talk about what colors you would like as well as any theme. Your invitation will hint at the formality of your wedding as well so choose an invitation that matches.

Make Sure They're Legible: Avoid light ink on light backgrounds and dark ink on dark backgrounds. Yellow and pastel inks are hard to read so if you are using those colors make sure the background contrasts enough to make the letters pop. Don’t use overly scripted fonts. They can be hard to read and you want your guests to be able to understand your invitations.

Choose Your Words Wisely: Learn the rules to wording your invitation. Whoever is hosting the wedding is traditionally listed first on the invitation. You should spell everything out including dates and times: “Saturday the sixth of May at six o'clock in the evening.” You can easily find templates for invitations online to help with wording.

Start Early: If you are going to hire a stationer, start looking for one 9 to 11 months before your wedding. Your save-the-dates should go out six to eight months before the wedding and wedding invitations should be mailed 6 to 8 weeks before the wedding. If you're having a destination wedding or marrying over the holidays, send out your invites even earlier (10 to 12 weeks before the wedding).

Don't Forget the Rest of Your Suite: Order your menu cards, programs and thank-you notes with your invitations. It's a good way to ensure all your stationery has a cohesive look, even if you want to vary the design slightly for each. Also, don't forget those little items like favor tags and welcome bag notes.

Put a Stamp on It: If you want guests to mail back their reply cards, include stamped (and addressed) envelopes. Traditionally, the return envelopes should be addressed to whoever is hosting the wedding but you're keeping track of the guest list, you can use your address instead. Tip: Postage rates do change from time to time, so check the rate and weigh an invitation before you add those stamps to make sure you've got adequate postage.