So, to make your wedding interesting from the onset, why not opt for either of these two fun ideas for invitations to your wedding?

Message in a Bottle

If you have ever picked up a bottle on the beach with a message written on a piece of paper, you may have appreciated the romantic idea. Well, now, you can recreate the magic you felt by sending out message in a bottle wedding invitations!

You can either have a wedding store make these bottled invitations for you to save time or you can make these fun invitations yourself to save money. Whatever your choice, keep to the theme of a beach wedding by injecting touches of the sun, sand and sea.

Think of placing colored sand to match your color motif, little seashells to match those in your cake, starfishes to reflect your starry-eyed state of happiness and even small water balls to represent the sea. This way, you can evoke the beach-y mood to your wedding guests through these unique wedding invitations.

If you decide to make them on your own, remember a few things. First, make sure that you have a pull mechanism to allow the paper to come out of the box easily. You don’t want your wedding invitation recipients to go fishing on dry land or hammering on glass to get to the paper. Even a simple strip of ribbon attached to the paper will do the trick.

Second, think of shipping costs. Try to keep the weight to a minimum, say, by placing just a half-inch of sand so as to save on costs. Besides, you want your wedding invitations to be evocative of the beach, not mess up your guests’ tables with sand!

Flip Flops in a Shoebox

Well, flip flops are great beachwear so why not turn them into unique wedding invites? These might be the easiest invitations in a beach-themed wedding because you just need two basic things: a pair of flip flops and a piece of paper with the invitation words.

For more flair, you can always place the flip flops in a customized shoe box. Of course, this will add up costs per se but then again, you will have wedding invitations that double as wedding favors. Ultimately, you can save money from double duty wedding items!

And your guests will appreciate your thoughtfulness since they can use the flip flops on the beach. Whoever says that wedding favors have to be for display purposes only must have never attended a beach wedding where flip flops are the wedding invites and favors rolled into one.

Truly, when it comes to wedding invitations, you are only limited by the power of your imagination. So, veer away from all-paper wedding invites and start thinking of bottles and flip flops beyond their utilitarian functions.

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Here are some ideas on how to share the romance of your wedding by mailing out themed beach wedding invitations:

Color – Greens, blues, aquas, bright colors, and shimmery pearls come to mind to symbolize lush palm trees, clear blue waters, vibrant tropical flowers and pretty seashells. Shape – If you are looking to be more whimsical, invitations can also come in unique, fun shapes such as beach chairs, flip flops, airplane tickets, etc. These types of wedding invites would certainly surprise and delight your guests. Design – The beach theme can be illustrated by picturesque palm trees, a sunny beach scene, bright tropical flowers, shimmery seashells or maybe a couple strolling in a romantic seaside setting. Photography – How about featuring a photo of a romantic beach scene on your wedding invitation such as a spectacular sunset or a hand-drawn heart in the sand.

Depending on the style of your wedding, your beach invitations may be formal or more on the casual side. A more casual invite may be appropriate if you are planning a small destination ceremony followed by a post-wedding reception when returning home.

In keeping with your theme, you will also find a great selection of beach save the date magnets and cards if you will be announcing your wedding ahead of your actual invitation. This is often a good idea when having a wedding that will involve your guests traveling to a destination.

Weddings are one of the most ancient traditions of mankind. They are steeped in ritual and customs particular for each culture. But as the modern bride and groom struggle to find the best way to express their love for each other, they often end up meshing long-held traditions, such as the long white dress, with modern touches that make the wedding feel uniquely their own. One of the many decisions that the bride and groom will have to make is what will be on their wedding invitations.

While the particular color and style of wedding invitation is largely a matter of personal taste, many young couples spend even more time deciding what their wedding invitations will say. It may seem like a simple matter of announcing place and time, but there is one element of the traditional wedding invitation that is becoming more controversial in modern times.

Traditionally, the parents of the bride announce the event, stating something to the extent of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith are pleased to announce” or “Mr. and Mrs. Smith request your presence,” followed by the details of the ceremony. This custom arises from the fact that the parents of the bride were traditionally responsible for paying for the event. In these modern times, however, it is becoming increasingly common for couples to foot at least part of the bill for their own wedding, especially if they are already established in their careers and have been able to save for the event. It is also not unheard of for the groom’s family to help pay for the ceremony, especially in this modern era when the older tradition may seem to put an unfair financial burden on the family of the bride.

So the questions becomes, what is the appropriate phrasing for the modern wedding invitation? Many couples choose to go with the more traditional wording, especially if the bride’s family is, in fact, paying. Other couples may also choose a traditional phrasing for their wedding invitations despite who is actually footing the bill, simply to honor tradition and the importance of the approval of the bride’s parents.

Other couples, especially those paying for their own weddings, choose to announce the weddings themselves in their invitations, which phrasing such as “Jane Smith and Mark Anderson request the honor of your presence” followed by the wedding details. This phrasing may be especially popular for couples marrying later in life.

For couples unsure of what is most appropriate for their own wedding invitations, an alternative phrasing may offer the best of both worlds, emphasizing the importance of both the couple themselves and both of their families in bringing this event together. This phrasing may be something such as, “Together with their families” or “Together with their parents Jane Smith and Mark Anderson request your presence…”

In today’s modern world, there is no truly “correct” way to write a wedding invitation. Each couple should choose phrasing that feels right for them.

Trying to figure out how to get your designer wedding gown halfway across the world? Do you need a college degree to slog through the marriage laws of that quaint island nation? There’s no question that it can be challenging to plan a destination wedding. This guide will make the process a little easier by providing unique ideas for destination wedding invitations as well as tips for creating the perfect invite.

*Whether you’re headed to an exotic beach locale or a romantic European city, destination wedding invitations can create a celebratory tone for your guests. Headed to Venice? Use an image of a gondola or Piazza San Marco to get your guests in the mood for the romance of the city–and your ceremony. Online wedding specialists also offer destination-themed stationery designed to look like American passports. Imagine how excited and honored family and friends will be to receive one of these special and unique invitations.

*There’s nothing quite like a themed destination wedding. Is the happiest day of your life going to be at the happiest place on earth–Disney? Send invites in the shape of Mickey’s iconic head or envelopes printed with your favorite characters. Maybe you’re marrying your knight in shining armor at a renaissance event? Consider an invitation rolled up like a royal scoll. Wherever you’re headed for the ceremony, the most important part of theme destination wedding invitations is to let guests know how much fun they’re going to have. Theme wedding invites are easy to find through online wedding stationery printers.

*If guests will be digging their toes in the sand, you’ll want destination-inspired invites that convey the special feel of lakeside or oceanside nuptials. Is a casual ceremony your style? Think about using playful dolphin images or colorful sandal motifs. Online wedding stationery specialists even offer invites shaped like beach umbrellas. Invitation images or designs for more formal beachside nuptials might include gentle sunsets or ocean vistas.

*The sky’s the limit when it comes to destination wedding invitations for Las Vegas nuptials. Elvis silhouettes. Slot machines. Roulette wheels. Since “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” let your imagination play when selecting wedding invitation ideas. Don’t let that imagination run too wild though. Try to avoid off-color or suggestive Sin City invites–while it might seem like a fun and funny idea now, you might not want your elderly grandma to get her hands on one.

Once you’ve chosen which wedding invitation ideas you’ll use, remember these two simple tips:

Tip #1: Planning a destination wedding can be complex, so look for wedding invitation ideas from an online stationery specialist who offers a range of selections, making it easy for you to choose and click your way to the perfect invite.

Tip #2: Even elementary school spelling champs can be stumped by foreign city names and locales. Triple-check unfamiliar spellings so you don’t end up inviting guests to Pizza, Italy instead of Pisa, Italy.

Your wedding invitation makes a first impression on your invitees, and gives them an exciting glimpse into the big day ahead. Wedding invitations can also say a lot about you as a couple. With the right wording, everyone on your guests list will get a taste of your personality in addition to exciting information about the wedding. Depending on your wedding particulars, there are many different ways to word your wedding invitations.

If you are going for a formal wedding invitation, you should look back to conventional wedding etiquette. If your wedding is formal, you’ll want to stick with the more traditional wedding invitation wording. But if you’re having a more modern wedding, you can opt for a fun and modern approach to the wording.

Host and Hostess

First, you have to know who is hosting (paying for) your wedding. Traditionally it is the bride’s parents so their names appear first on the wedding invitation. However, if both parents are hosting the wedding, or if the couple is hosting their own wedding, the couple’s name appears first on the invitation. Here are some examples:

Bride’s Family Hosting:

“Mr. and Mrs. John Smith or (Jane and John Smith, less traditionally) request your presence at the wedding of their daughter….”

Groom’s Family Hosting:

“Mr. and Mrs. Jack Jones (or Jill and Jack Jones, less formally) request your presence at the wedding of their son…”

Bride and Groom’s Family Hosting:

“Mr. and Mrs. John Smith and Mr. and Mrs. Jack Jones request the honor of your presence at the wedding of their children…”

Couple is Hosting:

“Mr. Joseph Jones and Miss Janice Smith request the honor of your presence at their wedding…”

Wedding Invitation Request Line

The next step is to request their presence. Depending upon the venue of your wedding, the wording will vary. If you’re hosting your wedding at a place of worship such as a church, the wedding invitation should read “request the honor of your presence at the/their wedding of their children…”

However, if you’re holding your wedding at a different venue other than a church or place of worship, your wedding invitation should read, either, “request the pleasure of your company at the wedding of their daughter/son.”

If the couple is hosting, the request should read “invite you to join us at the celebration of our marriage….”

Announcing the Date and Time

The next step on your invitation is to announce the date and time. Traditionally the words are all spelled out, such as, “Saturday, the fifteenth of June, two thousand and ten at two o’clock in the afternoon,” or, “Sunday, the second of December, two thousand and eleven and half after two o’clock in the afternoon.”

If you’re going for a more modern approach, you can just write, “Saturday, June 15, 2010 at 2 p.m.”

Location, Location, Location

The next line of your invitation should be the location of you wedding. However, if your wedding is at a popular local location, you don’t need the address, but you do for smaller or lesser known locations.

If you are hosting your wedding at a vacation destination or a place outside of your local home city or town, you should include the full address, including the city and state/province, even country if necessary. If this is the case, you should also include an insert to your wedding invitation regarding the destination information and other information that will pertain to the venue.

Reception

If you’re having a reception, the next line in your invitation should be about the party or reception afterwards. You can include this on your wedding invitation or you can put it on a separate card (especially if you are inviting more people to the reception than to the wedding, or vice versa, which is common in keeping the wedding costs down). The wording should read something like, “reception to follow at . . .”

If you’re not serving a full meal at your reception, you should inform the guests by writing something like, “and join us afterwards for cake and cocktails at…” or “dancing and dessert to follow at…”

You should include a separate reception card if you’re holding the reception at a different venue from the wedding, or if the reception isn’t immediately following the wedding ceremony. Your insert card should read, “reception at eight o’clock at the Grand Hotel…” complete with the address.

Request a Reply

You should request a reply from your guests so you can finalize your plans. Include a reply card and self-addressed, stamped reply envelope. This will help you to get more responses to your invitations. Formally, your reply request should read “R.S.V.P.”

But you can also write, “the favor of a reply is requested before the fifth of June,” or “Please reply by…” You can also include a detailed reply card that requests whether they will or will not attend and the number of guests that they will be bringing.

Regardless of how formal your wedding is, your invitations should convey respect and appreciation for your guests, and let them know how much their presence means to you on your big day.

The invitation of your wedding is the first glimpse of your ceremony that your guests will see. It can really set the tone for your overall wedding and should reflect on the two of you as a couple, as well as the style of wedding that you are hosting. By paying attention to little details, you can make your wedding invitations unique and personalized.

Selecting your invitation is the first part of personalizing your wedding invitation. You should choose an invitation that speaks of you as a couple and to the theme of your wedding.

By choosing a theme for your wedding or your invitations, you easily have a personalized invitation. Some wedding themes include western, winter, autumn, roses, beach, holidays, love and more. Once you have selected a theme for your wedding and/or invitations, you can build from it and choose invitations that coordinate with the theme.

Let the wedding guide your selections. If you are having a formal wedding that will take place in the evening, your invitations will be quite different from an afternoon casual wedding or a beach wedding. By keeping the overall tone of your wedding (the time and formality) in mind when choosing your invitations can help you personalize your choice. A more formal wedding will require thicker and more luxurious stationery. A more casual wedding or beach wedding will use lighter stationery.

Printing choices are also a way to personalize your invitations. Engraving, thermography, embossing, and print are just a few examples of the printing choices available. The costs vary for these choices, but the type of paper and theme of your wedding can reflect on the printing choices you’ve chosen. A more formal wedding invitation should be engraved or embossed while more casual wedding invitations on lighter paper can use a similar effect that is simply printed.

Font choice is another big aspect of your unique wedding invitation. There are hundreds of types of script fonts you can choose from, but you can personalize your wedding invitation by choosing a font that is a little less standardized. Commonly, wedding invitations use a handwritten-style scripted font that is feminine and airy. However, you can choose to use a chunkier more eclectic style of font if that fits your theme.

The wording of your invitation is another way to personalize and make your invitations unique. The wording is the primary part of the invitation and can really speak about the two of you as a couple and the theme of your wedding. There are several traditional wordings for wedding invitations, but do not be afraid to step outside of the box and write your own. You can use quotes, poems, song lyrics, and other written works as inspiration for your invitation wording. You and your fiancé can write the wording that fits your personalities along with the overall theme and tone of your wedding. Again, if your wedding is more formal and traditional, you may want to stick with more formal and traditional wording, however do not be afraid to add your own special twist.

The next step in personalizing your invitations is the envelopes. By adding some personal touches to the envelopes, you can create a personalized and unique aspect to your invitation.

There is etiquette for addressing your envelopes. The proper way to address them is to handwrite the labelling yourself. This may be time consuming and boring, but what better way to personalize your invitations than to handwrite the address? If you’re inviting hundreds of people, however, hand-addressing the envelopes could be quite a chore. Consider having a professional make a font based on your handwriting, that way you can print your envelopes commercially, saving you time, while still having the personalization of your own handwriting on the envelope.

You can still further personalize your invitations with the stamping of your envelopes. You may want to have photo stamps made of you and your fiancé to post the invitations, or choose a graphic that is compatible with your theme and have stamps made in that fashion. There are ‘love’ themed stamps available at most post offices, so feel free to take an idea from those and create your very own stamp to add that extra personalization touch.

You should not be afraid to let your theme and personalities leak into your invitations, even if your wedding is very formal and traditional. Even then, the wedding is still unique because it is surrounding two unique and individual people who are coming together as one. It’s a very special day for the both of you. Personalize your invitations to remind your guests that the day is special, but also individual to the two of you as a cohesive unit that is pledging their love to each other for all of eternity. Have some fun with your invitations and make them uniquely yours.

Many brides find that while there are a lot of suitable wedding invitations, their perfect invitation is often a combination of colors, styles and creations.  Most commercial printers don’t allow this sort of amalgamation, so what is a bride to do?  In this situation, the best answer just might be hand-made wedding invitations. 

Personalization

You want your very own special look for your wedding. And your wedding invitation should be as stylish and unique as you are.  If you do choose to hand make your wedding invitations you’ll able to customize so many aspects of your invitation to suit your taste.  You can even personalize your invitations for each guest if you choose.  You can add your very own personal touches with plant-able paper (a new eco friendly favorite) a swatch of fabric, a wax stamp, flower petals, or ribbon to match your color or pattern.  Your only limit is your own imagination. And if you don’t know where to start, there are many DIY wedding invitation kits available to get you started down the right path. 

Wedding invitation party

Once you decide to hand make your wedding invitations, you may discover that you need some help.  Enlist the aid of your bridal party and have your own wedding invitation making party.  Many brides have called on their maid-of-honor and brides maids to pitch in with their invitations. If you’re inviting a lot of guests, you’ll be happy to have the help.  And your bridal party just might have a clever touch or charming accent that you hadn’t thought of. Alternately, many brides have enlisted the help of their grooms for the invitation project.  In either case, you’ll have fun putting together an invitation that you made with love. 

A chance for savings

Hand making your wedding invitations can also be a source of savings.  You can pick out paper and accents that not only fit your style, but fit your budget.  This will help you gauge your expenses as you go.  And if you’re printing your invitations at home on your own printer, you can count on more savings there.  If you’re starting with a DIY wedding kit it can be as simple or as complex as you like, so you have a great chance to save some cash.

Some limitations

There are a few things to know when you’re planning on making your own wedding invitations.  First of all, making your own wedding invitations can be very time consuming.  Make sure you’ve set aside enough time if your schedule to be able to get your save-the-date cards and invitations in the mail on time.  If you’re wedding invitations are lovely, but late, your guests will be slightly less impressed.  You should also try to keep your imagination in check.  If you get too creative, you may find yourself needing additional postage on your invitations and incurring costs you didn’t count on.  You might try taking a sample invitation to your local post office and have them weigh it just in case.  You don’t want to find out that you needed more postage by having your wonderful, handmade invitations sent back to you for insufficient postage.

Hand made invitations can be a wonderful, personal accent to your wedding day.  If you find that taking on the project of making all of your invitations is just too time consuming you have other options.  Put your creative touch on your escort cards, ceremony programs, or even post-wedding thank-you cards. 

Satisfy all of your creative wedding invitation needs at MyExpression.com.  We’ve also got many great resources and advice for creating your perfect wedding invitation.

For sticking to a wedding budget, it is very important to cover all aspects of expenses you feel you may incur during the wedding planning stage and finding out about places you can get discounted décor and wedding paraphernalia is simply the best way to begin organizing the celebrations! With discount wedding invitations, there is a lot of variety made available to the happy couple tying the knot, but at lower prices than they could hope to get at regular card stores, which make great first impressions on guests when they take a look at these glitzy, classic, fun or ornate invites – for the choice is endless, if you just care to look around a bit!

The wedding invite you choose for inviting your near and dear ones should give the best impression about the kind of people you are and be in keeping with the general décor at the wedding venue or theme, if you’re planning on having one.

Some people who are sentimental about wedding invitations from friends or family or simply love collecting great-looking wedding invites end up keeping these as keepsakes in memory of the event, which is also a delightful thought, don’t you think?

With the advent of discounted wedding invitation stockists emerging in every possible American market – and even online – there is no dearth of styles and prices for discounted wedding invitation. It is just as easy to get confused over which one to pick as you are bound to have loads of choice with colors, effects, embossing and even precious stone embedded ones that make superb style statements for your taste.

Do start off with keeping an approximate wedding invitation budget in your mind when you visit the discount store stocking wedding invites as you don’t want to end up going overboard when you see the variety and styles on display and end up exceeding the budget for these – and in turn, upsetting the rest of the wedding budget.

Depending on the kind of wedding you are planning – simple and elegant or grand and sophisticated or any other style you can think of – you can go about searching the perfect discounted wedding invite, while always keeping a tract of the budget. Alternately, you can approach the store with cards and design that you may have liked particularly and collected in the past.

Another great way to give a personal stamp to the wedding invites and also to keep the costs down is to buy the easily available printing kits from the local stationery or wedding materials store (also check out stores on the Internet) and begin on a DIY (do it yourself job) – it surely will be one-of-a-kind and have your unmistakable stamp of individuality on it! This is more than likely to be kept by many loved ones as a creative effort on your part and thus, serve as a sweet reminder of your happy occasion.

Most traditional wedding invitations contain only text, not graphics and are typically upright and folded straight with the text engraved on the right. These type of cards are usually in white or cream with the text in silver or black; however, gold embossing is also very popular.