This time of year I'm finishing out my last few sets of invitations and starting to crank out some wedding day of goods. Unfortunately, I still get a lot of emails about wedding invitations for brides who are getting married in June or July. For premade invitations, this would be fun but for custom invitation suites, in order to get these out in time for the brides, I'm unable to work with that timeline. Which leads me to my blog post today! Wedding Stationary Planning Timelines- catchy right? ;)
There are a lot of more important things to focus on when you first get engaged, other than stationary and details. First and foremost, just enjoying the engagement! Secondly; securing a date, venue, and photographer. But I do like to think that Save the Dates come in a close second to these things. Once you have the big things figured out, I'd start setting up a wedding website and get on your Save the Dates in order to give your guests a heads up for something they can put on their calendar.
If you're going to be working with a designer on custom invitations, you want to reach out no later than 6 months before your wedding. This give you and your designer time to understand the vision, set a budget, design and print. From the start, set a clear date of when you want to get the invitations in your hands. You'll want to leave a few days after this for envelope addressing, stuffing and making that post office run. Your designer will buffer in around 2 weeks before this date for printing and shipping, but can only work as quickly as the client responds and makes decisions.