Getting the best concept for designing wedding invitations might sound overwhelming, and you need help figuring out where to start. While you could hire a wedding invitation designer, we can provide some cheaper alternatives.
The best wedding invitations are well thought out. Ultimately they are there to show off your style and present an opportunity for your guests to understand what type of wedding you are having.
Many websites can help you create and order wedding invitations online. Our best website selections are Paperless Post, Etsy, and Zolla. Websites like these can help you bypass the post office. It also means you won’t be wasting a paper source.
Often the wedding invitation can be very complex. Using a website can help you create your wedding invitation for the big event. In reality, your wedding invitation is your guests first impression of your wedding. You want it to count.
What is the Purpose of Wedding Invites?
The role of your wedding invitation is to invite your guests and give more detail about your event. Your invitation should formally invite your friends and family to celebrate the marriage between you and your partner with invitational lines written by yourselves and your families. A wedding invitation should also let them know important details, such as if it is a destination wedding.
How Many Weeks Before a Wedding Should You Send Invitations?
Save-the-date cards can be delivered up to one year before the wedding date. Invitations are required for a wedding 6 to 8 weeks before the wedding date. Invitations to destination weddings should be received at least three months before the wedding.
What is the Usual Amount to Spend on Wedding Invitations?
Most marriage invitations cost around $400 to $650. Prices vary quite a bit. The number of guests and the design and materials sourced will all add to the cost.
What is the Best Day to Mail Wedding Invitations?
Overall, research shows invitations sent on Monday morning have the most significant response rate – 65%.
Should I Have Paper or Digital invitations?
Digital invitations are a nice modern option. If you choose a more traditional wedding, go with paper wedding invitations. Either way, you want to go through a design process.
Paper wedding invitations provide a natural creative flair. You can use traditional styling with a personal touch. There are many talented designers to help you create beautiful invitations. However, graphic designers can be expensive, so get the final cost upfront. Undoubtedly, the paper goods they provide will be all the rage, but it might be more than you are willing to spend.
You should also consider the wedding invitation envelopes if you will mail them. You may feel a classic font style on the front of the envelope. It should also match the wedding invitation design. You can add wax seals to the wedding invitations to provide extra details. Eye-catching additions will help ensure you receive a response and wow your guests before the wedding even starts.
How Do I Choose a Font for My Wedding?
The wedding invitations should have romantic fonts with design elements to match the theme. They should have a save the date, an invitation and RSVP cards for the special day. If you already have the meal plan, you can include menu cards too.
But choosing your fonts doesn’t have to be arduous — it can be one of the enjoyable aspects of wedding planning. There are tons of fun, classic and even downright strange options, and they’re all available at the click of a mouse.
Font Selection Tips
There are a few things to keep in mind when choosing fonts for your wedding stationery, but the process doesn’t have to be complicated overall. Keep these simple rules in mind, and you’ll have your fonts picked out in no time.
1 It All Starts With a Theme
Choosing a theme will give you a rough idea of what to look for, making it easier to wade through the endless supply of fonts. For example, those planning traditional weddings can avoid keywords like “cute,” “handwritten,” or “grunge.” Still, if you’re planning a whimsical wedding, these keywords could lead you to that perfect typeface.
Try collecting images and ideas that appeal to you to create a mood board. Seeing everything you like together might point you toward a theme or prevailing trend.
2 Use A Mix of Fonts
Using the same font for everything can get tedious. Instead, use multiple coordinating fonts to add an element of interest to your stationery and signage. Combining fonts can be as daunting as choosing a single font, but if you include these staples, it’ll be easier to find a matching set:
- A larger display font for titles and signs.
- A script font – script fonts look great on invitations and add an extra classy touch, but they can be challenging to read and may be ideal for more minor things like place cards.
- A simple, easily readable font for body copy, such as menus and programs.
3 Consider Contrast
Contrasting characteristics, such as serif versus sans serif or tall letterforms versus wide letterforms, add interest and also help to create a visual hierarchy. Here are a few basic rules to keep in mind:
- Pick a theme and stick to it. If you opt for an elaborate script font for your signs, a whimsical handwritten font for your programs seems out of place.
- Mix tall, vertical fonts with wider horizontal fonts to create visual interest.
- Use a combination of serif and sans-serif fonts that coincide with your theme to differentiate between headings, signs and smaller text.
4 Fonts Can Do Double Duty
Depending on its readability, you can use the same font for multiple uses.
If the font you choose for signs and headings is easily readable, there’s no reason why you can’t use it for smaller items such as place cards or programs.
5 Think About Your Guests
If your grandmother has to squint to decipher which table she’s sitting at, your font needs to be bigger or easier to read. It may be your day, but giving a little thought to your guests’ experience can make your wedding the most enjoyable event of the season.
Crazy in Font
Selecting your wedding fonts may seem impossible, but it doesn’t have to feel like that. Once you know roughly what you want and need, you can narrow down your choices and sort through the available options much more quickly.
Whether you’re planning a traditional wedding or your tastes are a little more whimsical, we’ve put together a few font suggestions for your wedding stationery — make sure to check out our favorite traditional, art deco, modern romantic and whimsical font recommendations! And all of our suggested fonts are free, so feel free to use one or all of them or draw on them for inspiration.
What are the Best Wedding Invite Fonts?
Before you begin looking at the best wedding fonts, we will provide you with a crash course in typography. If you are a web developer, you know fonts are critical to the visibility of your messaging. However, if you are a font newbie, we are here to help you with the basics to find the ideal one for your wedding invitations. Keep in mind the main style of the font will help you present the fine details for your wedding invitations.
Script Fonts
Script fonts provide a formal and traditional feeling. Many have flourishes with swooshes and extras around each letterform, adding to the ornate styling.
Calligraphy Fonts
There are various modern and traditional calligraphy fonts. Modern calligraphy fonts have amore handwritten feel. Traditional calligraphy provides a style that looks closer to a script style font.
Serif Fonts
Serif fonts are fantastic for print design. If you are going to mail your wedding invitations, they help provide a little extra readability with their ‘feet.’ They help bridge the visible lines between each letter and improve legibility.
There are two types of serif fonts. One is more traditional and grounded in centuries-old styling. These look like they belong in old history books. The second style is more modern styling with more elevation and borrows.
Sans Serif Fonts
If you want a font to help the recipient be able to read the invite, you should go with a sans serif font. Sans serif fonts are the cleanest letters. There are no extra feet here. These fonts are ideal for digital invitations but also the most legible. They possess a modern elegance that can be paired with another font to create contrast.
Now that you’re well-versed in the various font types, it’s time to decide which will work for your wedding invitations.
What is the Best Font for a Formal Invitation?
Garamond is a trendy font commonly used in books and printing texts. Inspired by a typographical design from the early 1940s, Garamond is a classic font with timeless charm. The font also looks suitable for invitations to formal occasions such as graduation or weddings.
How Many Fonts Should a Wedding Invitation Have?
The font that you choose depends entirely upon yourself. The fact remains, however, that too many font combinations can cause confusion or conflict between them. Sticking with two or three can help with cohesiveness.
Where Can I Find Free Wedding Fonts?
Check out these other popular posts for the ultimate wedding invitation ideas:
- What to Include on Wedding Invitations
- When to Send Out Your Wedding Invitations
- How Many People Should I Invite to My Wedding?
1 FontSpace
FontSpace has over 85,000 fonts available in TrueType and OpenType flavors. FontSpace also provides free downloads. The organization offers a wide range of categories. FontSpace has over 3,000 architects supplying fonts. The designers clearly label them so you can be sure whether a font is suitable for commercial use.
2 FontM
It has a limited collection, but FontM’s selection of free fonts has friendly organization into all the categories you’re likely to need. As well as downloadable fonts available elsewhere on the web, it has a few in-house designs. While there are free fonts, it also has some premium fonts, with handy links enabling you to buy what you need quickly.
3 MyFonts
The site has one of the premiere font ranges you can purchase from. However, there are some excellent freebies available to download. Just utilize the dropdown to search for free fonts, and you’ll see all available free types. There were around 900 at the last count.
4 DaFont
DaFont is a massive archive of freely downloadable fonts. You will be able to find many categories, which is excellent if you have a specific themed wedding. You can utilize a medieval font for a medieval wedding. They also have sci-fi fonts if you want a wedding out of this world. You can browse the fonts by style, author, popularity or alphabetically.
5 Abstract Fonts
Abstract Fonts has the best interface to search their font library. The setup is super easy to navigate. There is a custom font preview option to see how your name will look with the font. The terms are clearly outlined on the website. The fonts are regularly updated with an ever-growing array of fonts for you to choose.
6 FontStruct
FontStruct is a community tool for building fonts for free. Users can create what the site calls ‘FontStructions.’ It uses the ‘FontStructor’ editor and users are encouraged to share once they finish so that others can download their fonts. This means there are many fonts to search through.
A range of high-quality TrueType fonts are available and ready for use on Windows and Mac. The site is also easy to navigate.
7 Google Fonts
Google might seem like the obvious one, but you should take note. Google Web Fonts provides a quick and easy solution. You can use the web fonts on its site. All fonts are open source, so you can share and customize them for your use. You can even collaborate with the original designer to improve the overall style. If you see a font you like for your wedding invitations, consider contacting the creator and see if you can tweak it to fit your style.
8 Fontasy
Fontasy is a library of above 1,100 fonts that you can download for free. The resource provides a beautiful range of styles. The interface provides a pleasant browsing experience as you search for the perfect font for your wedding invitation.
9 1001 Free Fonts
Misnomer alert! 1001 Free Fonts doesn’t feature precisely 1001 free fonts at all. It delivers more than that, probably more in the region of 10,001. The free font organization covers 64 categories. There is also an option to browse by designer. That way, if you discover someone’s style you like for your wedding invitation, you can see if there is something similar that you can put on the envelope.
10 Creative Market
Creative Market provides a selection of free goodies. Each week there are community-generated design assets on the online marketplace. The design shifts each week and are only open for a limited time. Since the fonts on offer here are generally paid-for, you understand you’re acquiring a good quality product, and it’s a thoughtful way to get the right font for your wedding invitations. If you buy something on Creative Market, you can usually unlock even more fonts with qualifying purchases.
Final Thoughts on Designing Wedding Invitations
In addition to your wedding invites, you should also create a wedding website. There are only so many details you can present on an invitation. A wedding website will help provide more information. A graphic designer can develop the website, but you need to know the wedding font. The importance of the website is to provide all the details about the bridal shower, the wedding theme, the color scheme and the dress code for the big day.
We hope this article has helped inspire you to design your perfect wedding invitations! Good luck and congratulations!
