Diary of a Boho Bride – Emily & Jonny, Entry 8: The Completed Invitations

Wooo Hooo the weekend is upon us and the best thing is it’s the Bank Holiday! 3 day weekends are the best and I think they should be compulsory! We are going out on Sunday for food in Leeds as it’s Paul’s birthday. Any excuse to have a cheeky cocktail! I hope you have had a great week.

Today we are back with Emily for our weekly fix of ‘Dairy of a Boho Bride’. Last time she spoke all about the Bridesmaids and this week she shows us her completed invites. Making you own invitations can be tempting, but as Emily says don’t underestimate how long it will take you. If you like a spot of DIY then great but if not leave it to the experts! I’m sure you will agree that Emily has done an amazing job, they look beautiful.

I’ll pass you over to Emily………

In my last diary entry I mentioned I was in the design development stage of the invites. I am now pleased to say that they are finally finished and handed out to our lovely guests – even evening invites. My advice to all the brides and grooms taking up the challenge of designing and making your own invites is to not underestimate the amount of time it takes. There may be highs and lows, and there may be a point where you don’t even like them anymore! Persevere; the reaction from your guests will be worth it.

I played about with the design for ages doing a few mock ups along the way. I tested loads of fonts to see what looked best and most importantly legible to all. In the end I choose a decorative font for the titles and just a type writer style for the main information. To create a rustic boho theme, I used A4 brown card, slightly textured off-white paper and wrapped two sprigs of dried lavender in twine. The lavender is from Yorkshire Lavender. It smells gorgeous and I have two huge bunches left over for more decorations. I really love that guests smell the invite! I used the same leather cord as I used on the save the dates to seal the invite which is near the same colour as the bridesmaid dresses. Now I have the design finalised, the rest of our stationary to follow should be quite straight forward – famous last words.

I started mine by planning what to include in the invites. Because most of our guests are travelling to Yorkshire for the wedding we wanted it to be as informative as possible to help them. After all, Yorkshire can be totally foreign land to some. So they have ended up being ‘A guide to Emily and Jonny’s Wedding Day’.

Here are all the sections I included:

• First of all, a clear label indicating exactly who the invite is addressed to. If it’s a couple or a family I tried to make it clear to avoid people asking any awkward questions about who is included
• Date, obviously
• Time of ceremony and end of evening
• Venue information, including additional info, for example cars are to be left overnight at the venue.
• Accommodation details. Our venue doesn’t have accommodation however I reserved a few rooms in a hotel down the road for guests to phone up and book. They can use a code to book the rooms at a discounted rate. Hopefully by doing this most of our guests will join us the night before for a drink or a breakfast the day after the wedding, depending on sore heads and aching feet.
• Gift list information
• Local taxi number
• A link to our website – I’ll explain later
• Pull-out map and directions to navigate guests from train stations and the hotel
• Pull-out ‘In the Local Area’ guide. This is aimed at guests from afar making a weekend of it and includes information on the surrounding areas, where to visit, good pubs, etc.
• RSVP card. To encourage guests to reply quickly I included a small rsvp card to post back to my parents. There’s a section for dietary requirements and song choice. This means there’s no excuse for any guest not to dance!

So as you can tell, there was a lot to include. It seemed basic info just wasn’t enough. We have also put together a website for our wedding. Been in a tech savvy generation it only seems right to have some online presence with your wedding. We set up a basic WordPress website for free. The template is simple and there are plenty of online tutorials to help. It also gives us the opportunity to upload photos, links and more information about our day. There are also a few amazing apps to use for weddings. I have downloaded a basic countdown one and one called Wedpics which is fab! Wedpics is similar to Instagram; your guests can upload all their photos to your page throughout the day which means you get a glimpse of your wedding through your guests’ eyes. 

I hope you find my experience of invites helpful. I think hand making them gives a much more personal touch. It takes time and planning but it’s worth it in the end.

I was going to talk about my hen party that was a couple of weeks ago, but there’s just not enough time. Also, whatever happens on the hen party stays on the hen party!

Catch up soon! – 117 days to go!

Emily x