by Tracey Dean

Created on: June 17, 2007

A novices guide to DIY Wedding Stationary

My good friend has a saying she uses regularly which is "Keep it simple, Stupid". When I am making or designing wedding stationary that is precisely what I keep in mind. Keep the design simple; you'll be making a lot of them.
When designing your stationery, you need to decide what pieces of stationary you will need. E.g. Table plan, favour boxes, invites day and evening, thank you cards, menu's You should pick your colour theme, either to co-ordinate with the flowers and dress or you can use simple colour themes like gold or silver on black or white. If you use gold or silver do not mix them stick to the same colour peel off and any other embellishment should also be matching if metallic

Keep all your stationary the same. Design your main embellishment. Place this on all your stationery.

The knack of making wedding stationery is to work a production line system. Work out how many you need of each item and do all of them at the same time. If you have friends or family who are willing to help, assign them a job in the production line, show them how to do it once and leave them to it. E.g. (assembling the heart, and squares of card, another friend can then put the border peel off on.) This way no one feels that it's a huge task. If you're doing them on your own, give yourself plenty of time and do 1 job a night if you feel you've done enough, leave it to another night.) Soon you'll have a professional looking complete set of stationary at a fraction of the price. You'll be so proud when your guests ask who made the lovely stationery

For the actual perfect wedding invitation pack you should have
The wedding invitation this is often referred to as the daytime Invite
An outside envelope matching the wedding invitation
Also
A evening or reception invitation
An RSVP card
An RSVP envelope
Directions to the wedding service location and also to the wedding reception
Recommendations for accommodation for out-of-town wedding guests
A wedding menu if guests are required to pre select their choice of menu

Accessories on the day
Order of Service
Table Plan ( Alexander Paper Supplies, can cut the mounts for your table plan to order)
Menu
Favour box, or other favour

After event
Thank you card (for wedding Gifts)

Designing your own stationary

Before you rush to make all your stationary, decide your colours and possibly the embellishment you want, then play around with matting and layering (textured and patterned paper shimmer paper) and positioning on trial cards. Be sure to try a peel off invitation on the design you like, when you like the look ,then go on to make all your stationary with this design

Easy Matting and Layering

Decide what embellishment you like, place it onto a piece of card and cut a rectangle or square to fit. Should be measured to closest 1/4 inch say embellishment fits on 2 inch square

To create a 1/8 inch border around your matted embellishment you cut a square 1/4 inch bigger than your 1st square. If you want 1/4 inch border you cut 1/2 bigger.
You can matt in different colours and as many as 3 times but with wedding stationary I'd only do 2 , keeping it simple.

Positioning your matted embellishment

You don't always have to put your embellishment in the middle of your card you can offset it to one side.
You can place it in the bottom right hand corner. Leaving a gap to the edges, not less than 1.4 inch. If you imagine your card divided into 3 length ways strips you can place your embellishment in any of these strips. If you imagine it divided into 3 more strips across the card you can place your embellishment on the cross points of the joining strips.

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