Invitation options, explained

01 / Cards

Choose the cards your guests need.

The invitation carries the essentials: who is inviting, who is invited, where and when. Anything beyond that has traditionally travelled with it on separate cards. Choose the ones that match how much your guests need to know.

Invitation, details card and RSVP card arranged on pale marble — Invitation, details card and RSVP card. Open the image to see the full 4K example.

If you are using a wedding website, add a QR code or printed link to the invitation. You can still include an RSVP card if you want replies by post.

If you are keeping everything on paper, a details card can carry the practical information. Add an RSVP card if you want guests to return their response by post.

RSVP card

For replies by post

A separate card for guests to return their reply, printed with the date you need to hear by. That date usually sits four to six weeks before the wedding, which leaves time to confirm numbers with your venue and finish a seating plan.

Worth having when some of your guests would rather write back than fill in a form. Older relatives in particular tend to reply faster to a card than to a link.

You can skip it when replies are coming through your website. Asking for the same answer in two places tends to produce two different answers.

A blank reply envelope is included with every RSVP card, at no extra cost. Add a stamp before you post them, which is the usual arrangement and the one every studio works to. Reply postage is counted per household rather than per guest, so it is a smaller number than it first sounds.

If you would like your return address printed on the reply envelopes, tell us when you order.

Details card

For practical information

A second card for what your guests need to know but the invitation should not have to say: directions and parking, transport, where to stay, dress code, whether children are included, and your wedding website address.

Worth having for most weddings, because the alternative is a crowded invitation. There is also a matter of tone. A line such as "adults only", or a note about gifts, reads as abrupt on the invitation, where the whole purpose is to welcome someone. On its own card the same words read as useful information, which is all they were meant to be.

You can skip it when the ceremony and reception share one address, guests are local, and your website carries the rest.

02 / Website

Point guests to your website.

If you have a wedding website, the question is how visible its address needs to be. That depends on what the website is doing. A site holding background reading can sit quietly on the reverse. A site collecting replies has to be seen, or people will miss it.

The same invitation shown twice, once with a small QR code beneath the wording and once with the website address set in type — The same design two ways: a QR code on the left, the address set in type on the right.

QR on the back

The code sits on the reverse and the front is left exactly as it was designed.

Choose it when the invitation is something you want photographed and kept, and the website holds background rather than anything urgent. A QR code is a functional mark, and keeping it off the front protects the typography you chose the design for.

Think twice if your website is where guests reply. Some of them will never turn the card over. If the reverse is where the address lives, we can set a short line on the front pointing to it.

QR on the front

The code is drawn into the front layout, so guests meet it as they read the invitation.

Choose it when the website is where guests reply or book their accommodation. If someone has to act on the address, it should not be hidden.

Think twice on a very formal suite. A QR code is unmistakably modern, and against traditional spelled-out wording it can sit awkwardly. We keep it as small and quiet as it can be and still scan, but it will always read as a piece of technology on the page.

Printed link

Your website address set in type, with no code at all.

Choose it when you want the address to read as part of the wording rather than as a scannable object. It also reaches guests a code cannot, including anyone reading a photograph of your invitation rather than holding the card.

Think twice if your address is long. Guests have to type it, and a mistyped address goes nowhere. Something short is worth arranging with your website provider before the invitations are printed.

Not using one

Everything your guests need arrives on paper. Plenty of weddings are run this way and nothing about it is old-fashioned.

If you go this way, the paper has to carry the full load. A details card takes the practical information, and an RSVP card gives guests a way to reply. Set your reply date a little earlier than you would online, since posted replies take their time.

03 / Paper

Our invitation paper.

Every piece is printed on smooth, matt card. The surface matters more than it sounds: fine serifs, hairline rules and script all hold their edges on a matt stock, where a gloss finish would catch light across the type and a heavy texture would break it up.

Warm white

Where each design starts

A soft warm white, a little gentler than office paper and without the blue cast. It is the shade most of our designs are photographed on, and the one to picture if you are comparing designs rather than colours.

Other colours

Shown on each design's page

Most designs can be printed on other shades, from paler whites and creams through to deeper colours. The range differs by design, so each product page shows the colours available for that piece and previews the artwork on the one you select. Your choice travels with the order and appears on your proof.

If you are deciding between shades, a sample box is the honest way to do it. Screens render paper colour poorly, and warm whites in particular look almost identical on a phone and clearly different in your hand.

04 / Print

Add detail to the invitation itself.

These options change the invitation rather than adding another card. You will see your wording, artwork and placement in the proof before printing begins.

An invitation printed with a guest's name above the couple's names, beside the reverse of the card carrying a monogram — A guest's name on the front, a monogram on the reverse.

Print on the reverse

We print the back of the invitation as well as the front. The reverse can hold a monogram, a small map, the running order of the day, or wording that would crowd the front.

Worth having when you are close to needing a details card but not quite. Using the reverse can save you a second card, and the invitation still arrives as one piece of paper.

Custom venue illustration

Send us a clear photograph of your venue and we draw it for your invitation, then settle its placement and scale with you at the proof.

Worth having when the building is part of the story: a family property, a chapel that means something, a house you have all been going to for years. It gives guests the place before they read the address.

Send the photograph in daylight, taken straight on rather than at an angle, with the whole building in frame. We will tell you before we start if what you have sent will not draw well.

Guest names printed

Each invitation is printed with the name of its guest or household, so the card arrives addressed to the person holding it. After you order, we ask for the final list before we prepare the proof.

Priced at $2.50 a card, and never more than $100 an order.

Worth knowing that this is also how you settle who is actually invited. A card reading "Sophia and James" answers the plus-one question without anyone having to ask it, and "and family" is how you include children.

05 / Envelopes

Choose the envelope and its finish.

A plain white envelope comes with every order. If you have something with more character in mind, you are welcome to supply your own, and plenty of couples do. Guest addressing can be printed on the envelopes we send.

An invitation beside its white envelope, printed with a guest name and postal address — The invitation with its envelope, addressed to the guest.

Plain white, included Supply your own

The envelope we include

Included with every order

A plain white envelope. It is there to carry the invitation safely and take a clearly printed address, and we would rather say that plainly than dress it up. The card is where the work has gone.

For most weddings that is exactly right. The envelope is opened once and set aside, and the thing your guest keeps is the card. If yours is a wedding where the envelope itself matters, supply your own.

Supply your own

Order the invitations on their own and pair them with envelopes you have chosen. Couples do this when they want a heavier stock, a colour, a lining, or a wax seal, and it is a perfectly good way to work.

Two things worth doing before you buy them. Ask us for the finished card size so you can match an envelope to it rather than guessing, and order a few more envelopes than you need, because addressing goes wrong occasionally and spares cost less than a reprint.

Address the envelopes

We print each guest's name and postal address on the front of the envelope in type chosen to sit with the invitation. After you order, we will ask for the final address list before proofing.

This is different from the reply envelope included with an RSVP card, which travels back to you rather than out to a guest.

06 / After you order

Your proof comes before print.

Choose your options on the invitation page and reserve your order. We will then collect the wording and lists needed for your design.

Invitation card beside a digital proof sheet on pale marble — Your proof gathers the wording to check before print. Open the image to see the full 4K example.

Your brief

After you order, we send a short form for your wording and details. This is where you provide guest names, postal addresses, venue references and any notes tied to the options you chose.

Your proof

We send a free digital proof for you to approve. Nothing is printed until you are happy with it.

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Invitation options, explained.