Choosing your wedding stationery is one of the last things you need to organise, but don't leave it until the last minute, you should be looking at samples 26 weeks before your wedding day.

So where do you look?, most companies have a website these days, and there are many wedding directories on the internet that you can search through and there are your local wedding fairs, you will soon see that there are two ways of producing wedding stationery, handmade and printed, if you go for handmade then the internet and your local wedding fayres are the best places to look, most of these companies have a mail-order service so it doesn’t matter where they are based, at the wedding fayres you can see examples of their work and meet the designers and producers, they will be happy to talk to you about your wedding stationery.

If you go for printed wedding stationery there are large letterpress companies in the U.K. that have agents in most counties with catalogues and brochures for you to look at, you can search the internet for these companies, if you have a wedding section or wedding gift section in your local department store they sometimes have wedding stationery brochures for you to look at, and there is your local printer who will do their own stationery and sometimes have catalogues for the larger letterpress companies, and there are the smaller print companies, again the internet and the wedding directories are the best places to find these.

So now you know where to look, what do you look for ?

Try to picture how you wedding will look, at what type of venue will the wedding take place, what colour will your dress be, what colour will your bridesmaids dresses be, what colour will your bouquet be and at what type of venue will the reception be held if different from the ceremony, picture all this and you will have the colour and style of your wedding, your wedding stationery has to complement and coordinate your colour and style and tie everything together right through the day, so look for designs in your colour that reflect your style.

If you can't find what you are looking for then ask if you can change the designs to fit in with what you want, most of the smaller stationery producers can do this for you, the handmade companies buy their embellishments in various colours so they can swap things around for you, the smaller print companies can also swap colours and change their designs to fit in with your colour scheme and style, ask for samples from a number of producers so you can see how the stationery will look, if they can personalise your samples you will be able to see exactly how the finished stationery will look.

Once you have chosen your stationery producer and got your design and colour sorted you need to decide what stationery you need. It's a good idea to send out Save the Date Cards to let everyone know as soon as possible the date of your wedding, if people have to travel long distances and need to arrange accommodation, or sort out a baby sitter, or perhaps some people usually go on holiday at the time of your wedding, then a Save the Date Card will give them time to get things sorted while you organise your stationery.

Start with your invitations, try to avoid over elaborate writing on the inserts, the capital letters can be difficult to read, especially when typed as a post code, you don't want your reply cards going to the wrong address, you will need one per family or couple and one for each person coming on their own, plus 3 or 4 spare in case you make a mistake writing them out, or in case you have overlooked someone on your guest list, if you are inviting people to the reception but not the actual wedding then you will need Evening invitations as well, decide who is officially sending out the invitations and where the reply cards should be sent to and if someone else is hosting the reception this should be printed in the Evening invitations and if your venue or caterers have given you a deadline this should be printed as well.

If you are getting married in a church you can have an Order of Service, this will tell everyone what is happening and what hymn's they will be singing, include entrance and exit music and any readings or poems, your ushers will hand these out as your guest arrive at the church, the Order of Service is best kept simple so everyone can follow it, the Vicar or Reverend normally suggests everyone has their own Order of  Service as it encourages more people to sing, but all you need is one per couple, two per family of three or four, and one for each person on their own, not forgetting one each for the ushers, the bridesmaids, the best man, the person conducting the service, and if you are having a choir, one each for them. Don't forget one each for you and your partner, the person conducting the service will have to approve the Order of  Service before you can use it in their church, so allow time for this when ordering.
If you are having a civil ceremony or civil partnership ceremony you can have an Order of the Day, this will list everything that's going on, your stationer will be able to help you to with the layout of this.

At the reception a seating plan is a good idea as it helps your guests find their place at the right table, if you don't want to buy one perhaps the function manager or wedding organiser at the venue could type one out for you, to go along with the seating plan you will need place cards and table numbers, if the venue is doing the catering they might be able to provide these or perhaps your caterers if you are using outside caterers for the food, if you want the Seating Plan, the Place Cards and the Table Numbers coordinate with your wedding stationery then choose a stationery producer who can provide all these for you. Menu Cards on the tables will finish your table decoration, and if this is all coordinated with your wedding stationery just imagine how wonderful it will look.

So when do you order all this ? , you should be ordering your Invitations and Reply Cards 16 weeks before your wedding day, send these out 10-12 weeks before the day, order remaining stationery as soon as everyone has replied, and no later than 8 weeks before the day, and don't forget those Thank You Cards for all the lovely presents you are going to get, and  remember some gifts will come from people who were not at your wedding, so order these after the wedding when you know how many you need, if you are using your married name after the wedding this needs to be printed on the Thank You Cards, and if you are moving to a new address it is a good idea to have this printed on the cards as well.

Ordering this way helps to spread the cost, but it does cost more in postage.

Written by Terry Kelsall from Pre Nuptial Wedding Stationery ©2006