Wedding Planning 101: Wedding Stationery

Today I am going to share a very special post with you. As I was editing photos (and trying not to spend ages looking at them, awww) and as I am writing this now, I go back in my mind to the most special day in my life - our wedding day. To say that it was a fairytale wedding, is an understatement. Pinterest, you would crave it on your pages!! :) However, what I call fairytale could mean something absolutely different to others. We are all unique - as cliche as it sounds. The main thing is to make your Big Day special for the two of you (and your families and friends). My hubby and I, along with our families, put our hearts into organising the most perfect day for us to start our married life.

A number of my sweet fellow bloggers and friends are getting married this and next year so this post might come in handy. Even if you are not a bride-to-be right now, read on and pin away (please make sure to remember that all the photos are my property and the design work belongs to Es-Design). Also, no matter what age you are now, either you had your wedding day 2 or 20 years ago, or will have it in 10 years from now, I hope you will enjoy this post as I am opening up something so precious and dear to me. 

Personal disclaimer: I am obsessed with weddings and wedding planning. I just really enjoy the whole process coming together into that one special day. Nevertheless, I will not tell you how many late nights hubby and I had planning away, how many phone numbers I dialed, how many dresses I looked at and tried on, how many Pinterest images I saved and how many new flowers names I discovered! :) + million things on top of that. But today, without any further ado (excuse my chirpy ramblings - someone can't contain the excitement!), I will give you a few tips on how to get your wedding stationery right and will share our own wedding stationery with you.

Ok, let's go back to another very special day (morning/evening) in your life. When you get engaged everything changes right away. It is an unreal feeling because suddenly you don't have a boyfriend but a fiancé! Even simply realizing the fact that "wow, I am going to be this man's wife!" gets you up on that cloud 9 and higher! Our engagement story was requested a few times in my Twitter DMs and I will make sure to write a separate post on it. Spoiler alert: New York City, Empire State Building, New Year's Eve ;) 

A lot of girls who are engaged might ask the same question: "Now what? Where do I even begin with wedding planning?" First off, let everyone know! :) You will be amazed at how quickly the news spread and it is wonderful because you do want to share this moment. Number one thing to do in the stationery department is to design your engagement thank you cards. Family and friends will start sending you cards and gifts, therefore, it is nice to be grateful for their kindness. If you are a pro graphic designer, you are golden! If you are not, I definitely recommend you to find one and make sure all your wedding stationery is handled by this person. Make sure you love their work and trust them. We were very lucky because my (then future) sister-in-law is an outstanding professional graphic designer / amazing girl / happy wife and mama / overall wonderful person :) She kindly took (A LOT of) time to work on every bit of our wedding stationery and made it very special and personal to us. So, this lovely engagement thank you card includes our photo, thank you, wording of our choice, our names, a verse we love and NYC skyline with a little heart at the top of the Empire State Building ;)

What's next? Decide on your date + venue + theme/colours and order your wedding invitations and RSVP cards. As you can see, our wedding colours were ivory, royal blue and soft peach. They were used in our stationery, dresses, suits, flowers, everything. Also, my hubby and I, being from two different countries, had an idea for our invites (the ivory card) to include the map of Europe with two hearts connected together across the continent with a dotted line. We picked the font for our names + brought in a little heart. As you can see even from my blog theme, I love hearts :) Our invitations were square-shaped and the design definitely looked very different and unique thanks to the creativity of our designer. We came up with the words, and I especially love our RSVP cards options to accept or decline the invitation. Either you like your invitation to open up like a card or you prefect to include a photo - it is all personal and would love absolutely lovely reflecting your own taste.

I can't even tell you how much I am in love with our Order of Service cards. We carefully planned the ceremony that would display our beliefs (and preferences). The design in an absolute masterpiece, in my opinion. Note: the second image is a PrtScn of our Order of Service cards (+Menu) in PDF format, that's why royal blue transfers differently.

Every item of stationery we had was in two languages (English and Ukrainian) so that was double the work for our designer and ourselves. It all turned out amazing and perfect for us. I couldn't include our Wedding Timeline card because it contained a lot of personal information so I couldn't just blur out the whole thing - sorry about that. I highly recommend creating one, though. It will keep you organised about what's happening and when + your guests will appreciate knowing when they have to be present in your main reception area and when they are free to wander around and take those funny photo booth pics. The Menu card is in Ukrainian, by the way, so if you are able to read it, I am very impressed ;) The options guests went for were marked with a tick for the waiters' convenience. You can also see our little logo everywhere - T *heart* N :) 

Ask anyone who has ever planned the wedding what is one of the most difficult things they had to do. Without a shadow of a doubt, they will all chime in together: GUEST LIST! It might take you a while but once you are finished with it, you will be eternally grateful it's done :) Then it's time to figure out the seating plan. First of all, we didn't want to number our tables. We gave them names of the cities that we visited together and that meant a lot to us. A gorgeous seating chart was designed to help everyone find their corresponding city/table (all the guests names, obviously, had to be blurred out, but you get an idea). For example, New York: we got engaged there, Orlando: we had an amazing Christmas holiday in Disney, Lutsk: where we got married, etc. It meant the world to us to have them designed this way. 

This beauty was customized and ordered from a lovely Etsy shop and we love it so so much! Guest Book is a lovely extra thing to have at your wedding because it will keep all the lovely words your guests would have to say. Ours had a light wooden cover and back with beautiful cut outs for hearts - royal blue at the bottom - it's all in the details, isn't it? ;) + our initials and the date. It keeps so many beautiful memories.

Place cards and wedding favours are an amazing addition to the seating plan. Ours were clean and simple: the same main font as in our Order of Service, Wedding Timeline and Menu cards + little peach heart at the bottom :) Customized napkins were so lovely as well. My (then future) mother-in-law ordered those and helped so much with other gazillions things (she's one of the kind!). Our favours included a little spoon and fork set with a wee heart cut out in the handle + coffee beans in a tiny sack which said "Perfect Blend" + our initials + wedding date. I love them so much! :)

This is an optional thing to do but those special banners definitely do add even more of your personal touch to your Big Day. We had a few designed for our candy bar and photo booth area. Days and weeks of planning and shooting ideas came to life in our "Love is sweet, have a treat" poster and our photo adventures together. You can also see bits and pieces of all the yummy goodness (lots were baked by my lovely mother-in-law!) so beautifully displayed at our candy bar zone. Grateful beyond measure to everyone who helped it all to become a reality. 

Last but not least, once your most beautiful day is over, make sure to thank those who shared it with you and everyone who sent notes, cards, presents, text messages and helped you to make it happen. I am so so grateful to our amazing families, friends, caterers, all the wonderful staff and so many behind-the-scenes people who made our wedding day truly the most perfect day. 

Congratulations on making it this far! If you read this post from top to bottom, I feel like I should send you flowers or a fruit basket :) I hope you enjoyed it as it was so special and personal for me to share. Our wedding stationery was kindly designed by and belongs to wonderful Es-Design and we couldn't be happier with the way everything turned out. By the way, this is not a sponsored post. It is just me, sharing what I love, with you. Final little thought: wedding planning may be daunting and stressful sometimes but remember that it doesn't happen overnight. Take your time, think about things you love and things you would like to incorporate into your Big Day, put your heart into it and let your creativity run wild. At the end of the day, it is all about you and your special someone, and all the hard work is worth it.  

Be kind and thankful to everyone who helps. Just as I am thankful to you now reading this.

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Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on wedding planning & wedding stationery. 

What stationery did you use or will be using? 

Would you like to read more posts in Wedding Planning 101?