We originally thought of having a traditional wedding invitation. Formal script text on a cream board and the usual wordings, date, time, place and entourage list. We were so busy with other wedding preparations we only managed to finalize our invitation barely 2 months before the wedding.
Here are some tips:
1. Finalize the content before you go to the printer. Make sure you get the complete names, titles and right spelling for the names. Getting everything right is tricky so it's better to do revisions before you even start with the lay-out. Do some research online as well for sample invitations so you can use it as basis for the wording.
2. Scour the internet for sample invitations so you get an idea on how you want it to look. A lot of wedding invitation suppliers also showcase their samples at trade shows and in their shops. It's better though to have an idea of what you want to save time.
3. Customize by adding a personal touch to the invitation. My son, Miguel, rendered us as a cartoon and we used it for our "Save-the-Date" invitation. Our award-winning designer friend, Gail Villanueva, took over designing our invitation (she was horrified at how our rough draft looked). [See what she did above].
4. Save by having a regular printer produce your invitations. Our invites would've cost more than PhP100 had we gone to a wedding invitation printer. We also got a hefty discount from our friend who owned the printing company.
5. Don't give it to all your guests. We only gave physical invitations to select guests and we just sent invites via email (in PDF and through a Google Calendar invite) to other guests.
I remember also helping out a couple of friends for their wedding invitation. We just did the lay-out ourselves and printed it with our home PC printer. You don't need to do everything on your own, remember you have friends who are willing to help, so delegate!
