A Stress – Free Wedding Invitation Timeline: Tips from a Professional Designer
With the stress of organising your wedding day and your wedding invitation timeline, it’s easy to let your wedding stationery take the back seat. Exactly when should you start to reach out and start the search and how long would it take to create custom designed invitations, or ready to go invitations?
For a wedding invitation timeline I would typically recommend the earlier the better, 6-8 months in advance is the perfect time to start getting in touch. The most popular stationery designer out there can easily be booked up well in advance, so there’s no harm in sending an email and getting a 20% deposit paid, so that you can book your time slot on their calendar.
Sending out bespoke wedding invitations is a lovely way to make your wedding unique and luxurious. However, due to the hand painted nature of the designs and fine, delicate materials used, it’s important to give yourself plenty of time for the invitations to be created, printed and sent out to your guests.
I’m Rubana Gaspar, a professional designer for Crimson Letters. I will reveal all my tips on how to get the most out of your wedding invitation timeline experience, as well as sharing a typical design timeline to ensure your invitations are signed, sealed and delivered in time for your big day.
Hand Painted Wedding Invitations are all the rave. Customs designs with watercolour illustrations and hand calligraphy are not only creating a new movement across many countries with a plethora of workshops but they are vastly growing in fashion for weddings, particularly for destination weddings. Forget those perfectly digitised calligraphy fonts that once existed and those old tedious wedding invitation albums that you used to flip through in those grey normal wedding invitation shops. Those days are almost behind us. There is a new dawn upon us. Were the bride selects absolutely every details and customises her wedding stationery down to the last place card!
What Should you Consider Before You Order any Wedding Invitations – This Affects Your Wedding Invitation Timeline!
First of all you need to decide if you would like to order a specially designed custom hand painted wedding invitations, or if you would like some ready to go invitations.
What’s the difference between custom invitations and ready to go invitations?
Quite a substantial one!
Custom wedding invitations: This is the most expensive option. You work with me directly and I create a completely bespoke design based on your desires. This is quite an intensive time consuming process and can take anywhere from 2 to 5 weeks just fo finalise the design. Then you need to allow time for printing and shipping. If you’d like to know more about bespoke wedding invitations click here.
Or you can visit this page on custom hand painted wedding invitations.
Ready to go: This option is more budget friendly. The design are already set, so the price starts at a lower price point. If you would like to select a collection from the Portfolio page, all you need to do, is ask for your colours to be introduced and add your details.
How does this impact your wedding invitation timeline?
Designing, creating and printing bespoke wedding invitations, depending on your number of guests can take anywhere from 2 weeks to three months. Therefore it’s a good idea to start planning your desired designs as soon as possible.
To help jumpstart and prepare to help your wedding invitation timeline move forward, why not start by creating a Pinterest board full of imagery that inspires you? Maybe you’re enamoured by a pretty printed fabric or charmed by a photograph of a beautiful place. Perhaps you’re getting married in a private estate, or a grand villa that has vast amounts of inspiration?
Or simply look through our Portfolio of designs here, and see if there is anything that strikes a cord?
Almost anything can be used as an inspirational starting point!
I personally enjoy learning about a couple’s love story. This helps me to create stunning designs that are exclusive to you as a couple.
- How did you meet?
- Where will your event be held?
- What are the colours of your wedding decor?
- Which part of your wedding stationery is the most important?
- The more inspiration and information about your relationship and wedding that you share with your designer, the easier it is for them to create a strong design concept that you will love.
Wedding Invitation Timeline, Week by Week.
Custom Hand Painted Wedding Stationery -Wedding Invitation Timeline:
Below, I’m going to give you a full in depth guide, on the week by week process and exactly what will happen on your wedding stationery order process.
- Week 1: Design consultation / pay half the design fee or deposit to secure your place – During the first few weeks the designer should work closely with you by discussing designs and deciding on materials. At Crimson Letters you can embellish your invitations with luxurious ribbons such as French metallic lace or silk ribbons that we exclusively source from the best suppliers such as Silk and Willow.
- Week 2-4: The design process starts.
- Week 4: Decide on the final design / pay half of the production fee – The master copy of your design is digitally copied and printed onto fine paper that I source from my London stockist. At Crimson Letters we hand-paint over the top of the design to give an authentic, fine art look.
- Week 5-9: Production starts.
- Week 9-10: Packaging design (if required) + finishing touches. Pay final half of the production fee and postage
- Week 10: Delivery
Custom wedding invitation prices start at £3899 – £9999 all depending on what you require, which printing techniques and how many pieces you require.
Design Ready to go, Portfolio Collection- Invitation Timeline:
- Week 1: Design communication via email / pay half the design fee or deposit – You will get in touch with me and offer all of your details, how many invitations you need, any colour changes or any other design introductions, such as a wedding venue illustration etc.. The design is finalised and we go straight into production and printing.
- Week 2-4: You design is sent out to the printers.
- Week 4: Pay the final part of the fee.
- Week 5: Your invitations are checked, packaged and sent out to you.
Portfolio Collections are prices from £1500+ per 100 invitations.
Are you surprised the design process can take from anywhere from 6-10 weeks? At least you now have a clearer idea of a wedding invitation timeline and you have a breakdown of the experience from start to finish. If your venue is booked, you should start thinking about ordering your invitations now to avoid any last minute stress.
If you’re looking for the best possible service and a professional designer that can work closely with you to create your vision, head over to my website Crimson Letters and explore my portfolio of hand-painted wedding invitations here > https://crimsonletters.com/portfolio-luxury-wedding-invitations/
Here’s a little more about me:
I have been dubbed as, one of the hottest stationery newcomers by Brides magazine as, ” Ones to watch”. Looking for cheap mass produced invitations, then go somewhere else!!!
I’m a designer that leans towards the opulent, lavish and not afraid to use bold, rich colours. I often draw inspiration from my travels around Europe and my innate love for architecture and all things Baroque and renaissance. My instagram account Crimson Letters is go-to place if you’re looking for something that positively screams out with passionate-moody design and speaks of old world European influence.
If you’re looking for designs that will be created specifically for you to reflect your taste and you have some refined taste at that, then I will give you something no one else has.
My designs are adorned with fine art, highly detailed designs, finely drawn monograms and lavishly painted with bold swishes of thick acrylic paint. I also specialise and get pretty carried away with creating large bespoke envelopes with elaborate hand painted envelope liners. My calligraphy is not just another typical modern letting script. But wildly intricate calligraphy with lots of romantic flourishes. If you’re looking to stand out from the crowd, come and get in touch! Visit her website here.
Know any other brides-to-be who are confused about the wedding invitation timeline? Send them this article!
>>Leave a comment, what do you think? Which of the above designers are your favourite and more importantly I WOULD LOVE to hear more about what your preferred style is. What are YOUR favourite colours?
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Visit the full range of hand painted wedding stationery.