The most beautiful weddings seem to strike that perfect yet difficult balance between tradition and creativity. You want to maintain the great history and family customs that your guests expect to experience, yet you also want to make your special day memorable by including elements that are uniquely yours as a couple.
Of course, your wedding invitations are the same way! Combining tradition and creativity is perhaps the best way for you to bring a smile to your family and friends as you announce your upcoming wedding and give them a taste of what to expect on the big day. In a special two-part blogpost series, we’d like to focus on both of those factors and give you some insight into the kinds of design elements that belong to each category. Hopefully these posts will spark your own ideas about how to create the perfect wedding invitation suite.
Carried Over From the Past
Many of the traditional elements found in wedding invitations today have fascinating origin stories. For instance, have you ever wondered why a sheet of tissue paper is included to cover an invitation? Previous printing techniques–and of course, handwriting with a calligraphy or fountain pen–often used ink that could leak through and stain the other envelopes and paper inside the suite. The tissue paper absorbed any excess ink and kept the rest of the elements clean. While modern ink is much cleaner, we still often use this element to give invitations a traditional flair.
Another tradition that is still maintained with many wedding invitations is handwritten addresses. Addressing the invitations is a responsibility that traditionally fell to a family member of the bride, or even to a professional calligrapher. At Dodeline Design, we proudly keep this tradition alive with options for handwritten addresses. We can also make your envelopes look more beautiful and handmade with a variety of postage stamps that add color, interest, and nostalgia.
Keeping Beauty Alive
We find that most couples that get in touch with us to design their wedding invitations are interested in starting the process with a traditional foundation. For example, the paper we start with is usually ivory–not a plain white paper, but a little darker. For an even more traditional look, we can go with an ecru paper. Ink choices are usually black, gold, or navy blue.
Here’s a great example of a traditional wedding invitation, complete with an ornate font reflective of calligraphy and handwriting:
Multiple Pieces in One Invitation Suite
We usually refer to the “invitation suite” as the collection of all the different parts of the wedding invitation. Of course, it would be possible to mail out a single sheet of paper containing all the information that a guest needs about the ceremony location, the reception location, rehearsal dinner, local lodging options, and any other details, but traditionally it’s been done a little bit differently.
The reception information often comes on its own card, perhaps even set off with a creative design element like a ribbon or bow. You’ll also usually find a response card and envelope for the recipient to return as an RSVP.
One very interesting tradition is the use of an outer and inner envelope for a wedding invitation suite. This system arose from the fact that mail delivery in past centuries was a bit more chaotic than it is now, and by the time a piece of mail arrived at someone’s home, it could be quite disheveled and dirty from the long trip. A servant would remove the outer envelope, then deliver the still-clean inner envelope to the recipients so that they could receive a beautiful wedding invitation. While our modern postal service is far more reliable, fast, and clean than it was in the old days, it’s still a beautiful tradition that gives your wedding invitation suite an official, elegant, and memorable feel.
Stay Tuned for More!
We would love to talk to you in person about building your unique wedding invitation and balancing tradition with creativity. In the meantime, stay tuned for our next blogpost to find out how couples are exercising their creativity and creating their own new traditions for their special day!
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