Wedding planning requires lots of organisation and yes there’s all the fun creative planning such as your Pinterest inspiration boards, deciding on your colour palette and dress shopping. However, there’s also the actual organisation of the day itself which involves a lot of planning ahead and focusing on the details. The RSVP process will require some time and organisation but keep reading for some tips!
To help with managing the RSVP’s, I recommend either starting a spreadsheet to capture all the information of who you are sending invites to, to collect their responses and any dietary requirements. This will also help with the number of invitations you need to print which I’ll need to know! Alternatively, many couples use a wedding website to help them to manage their guestlist and wedding planning. The more organised you can be at the very beginning then the better. The ultimate solution if you have the budget is to hire a wedding planner who would take care of all the organisation for you.
Holly Booth - The Deckle wedding stationery collection
To make it as easy as possible for your guests, I advise couples to give as much information as you have available about the day within the wedding invitation. I design my wedding invitations as part of a invitation suite which includes the invite itself with the couples names, alongside cards containing all the wedding information such as the location, maps and accommodation information. There’s a curated collection of wedding stationery designs on my website which all have a cohesive style and many feature my hand written calligraphy. Each collection can be customised to suit your wedding colours and there are many finishing touches available too. Within each collection you can find the invitation suite as well as save the dates, table names/numbers, guest place names and menus.
Safrina Smith - The Clara wedding stationery collection
Once you send your wedding invitations out you’ll receive RSVP’s via various different communication channels. So, streamlining your process on a spreadsheet or website, to make it easy as possible to collate is always a good idea and you’ll thank your future self!
Holly Booth- The Phoebe wedding stationery collection
In each of my LouPaper wedding invitation suites I include an RSVP card. This makes it easier for guests to respond in the way you would like to receive their response! It’s also lovely when you start receiving all the replies back from your guests. You can also choose to add more information such as space for guests to request a song to be played! Another popular option is to include a self- addressed envelope within the invitation suite, to enable guests to return their rsvp easily.
Holly Booth- The Rosie wedding stationery collection
I suggest sending wedding invites out 6-9 months in advance of the big day to allow you time to chase up anyone who hasn’t responded. I would give your guests a deadline on the RSVP card too so everyone is clear! However organised you are there will always be some people who forget so have a date in mind to politely follow up to request their RSVP!
Holly Booth- The Jenni wedding stationery collection
If you choose to have on the day signage and stationery, then I usually start working on these items around 8 weeks in advance of your wedding day. The guest list details are the most important for the table plan.
If you have a wedding venue or caterers, they may have their own deadlines for your final numbers so it’s good to have this information all ready to go to avoid any last-minute stress.
Wedding Invitations and RSVP’s
I hope this has helped give you some tips ahead of your wedding planning and having a process to manage your wedding RSVPs as stress free as possible!
There’s lots of inspiration on the LouPaper blog for how couples have styled their wedding days. My Instagram and Pinterest accounts have lots of examples of the different styles of wedding stationery I have designed. The curated collection of wedding stationery designs can be found here and it’s a great place to start thinking about the kind of design you would like. Or if you had a style in mind and can't find exactly what you're looking for, I can use inspirational images to create stationery completely unique to you, in keeping with the colours and theme of your big day.
Please contact me here with any questions or if you would like to start a wedding stationery order. I’d love to help you with your wedding stationery vision!
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