1. Going Overboard on Design

Nothing ruins a wedding invite quite like over designing it. This can be anything from picking too many colours to incorporate, adding too many embellishments or trying to squeeze a lot of information into it. Instead, have a clear idea of what you want your design to look like, stick to 1-3 accent colours and avoid going into a ribbon frenzy! 

If you have a lot of information you want to add, then this can be done on separate, coordinating sheets or organised neatly into the design to ensure it's not the focus. Remember, simple is better.

If you have a lot of extras you want to add, then  pocketfolds are popular and handy way of holding and displaying a lot of sheets beautifully. 

2. Not Buying Enough

Buying the exact amount of supplies for the exact amount of wedding invites you require might sound like a great idea, but unfortunately mistakes are going to be made. From writing the wrong address on the envelopes to the printer deciding this is the best time for a paper jam - thing's are going to go wrong and you're going to want to be prepared for that in advance rather than rushing last minute.

You may focus on the amount of guests coming and equate this with the amount of invites needed, but remember you're only going to need one invite per couple or household. It might sound obvious, but this can often be overlooked.

3. Not Researching or Testing Printing 

Whether you're doing the printing yourself or taking a design to a print shop, there's a couple of things you need to do first.

If using a print shop, you need to discuss with them first what they require. Some may let you bring card and paper you've already carefully picked out, and some won't. Other's might print on card you bring in but require it to be in a larger format and cut down afterwards, either way this is a discussion best had before you make any purchases. 

If you're printing the designs yourself, you must be familiar with your own printer. All printers are different and some might only have the capacity to print on thin paper and not be able to print on card at all. Either way you'll likely have to alter your printer settings, especially if you're planning on printing on card. 

If in doubt - buy samples to test print on.

4. Not Using Standard Sizes

The wedding invite size of the invitation may not seem like a problem at all - until it comes time to post them and you realise no envelope on earth will fit them properly. 

In the UK and most of Europe, the A series of paper (A4, A5, A6, A7 etc.) are standard and have a corresponding set of envelope sizes to fit them (C4, C5, C6, C7 etc.). 

But what size are wedding invitations? A5 and A6 are typical sizes for wedding invitations, while A7 are often used as Save the Date and RSVP sizes. But this isn’t a one size fits all, and as long as you have the right sized envelopes (that will also fit through a postbox) it’s your choice.

If you're wanting a square, pocketfold or cheque book style, most sites selling these styles will have a suitable envelope for their sizes. So before you jump in consider what envelope will fit your wedding invitation size, confirm you can get that size and remember envelopes need to be at least a few millimetres larger than the invite size! You can find out more about sizes here.

All this envelope talk leads us to... 

5. Buying the Right Sized Envelopes

It can be pretty hard to tell online the scale of things like envelopes, and one of the most common mistakes we get is confusion with envelope sizes, particularly confusing C5 envelopes with C6. Now this is no problem for us and of course we're happy to accept unused returns, however if you're on a tight deadline or have a timeline you want to stick to, it isn't ideal to have to wait around for another delivery. 
 

6. Typos , Spelling Errors and Missing Information

Another one that sounds quite obvious but is very common - proof read for typos and spelling errors. If you've spent the past few hours staring at your design, you're probably so used to it that you might not spot them yourself. Get a few other people to read it - your bridal party, parents, a co-worker - they are much more likely to pick up on errors with fresh eyes. If there are any, you're definitely going to want to pick them up before you print everything or worse, send them! 

7. Leaving it Too Late

This is a common mistake regardless of whether you're making invites yourself, but considerably more difficult if you are. You'll need to start designing well in advance to ensure they get sent out by the deadline you intend to send them on. 

You'll need to consider the printed design itself and the timescale for printing if using a printers, plus how long it will take you to assemble, embellish and address each invite. In addition you'll need to ensure there's time for people to RSVP - ideally a week or so before your venue needs final numbers so you have time to contact anyone who hasn't RSVP'ed.