P is for Printed Materials!
This topic is especially exciting to us as we recently added an in-house graphic designer to help couples with this aspect of wedding planning. One of the most effective ways to make an impression on your guests is to brand your wedding. When all of your printed goods are made in a cohesive style it goes a long way in driving home your overall design of the wedding. The ratio of cost to lasting impression is staggering! (Is that too math-y of a sentence?)
Okay so there’s no shortage of items you can have a graphic designer make. We’ve had couples ask us for save the dates, invitation suites, programs, menus, seating charts, table numbers, and the list goes on and on and on. Take a deep breath, though, you don’t have to get everything! Pick and choose the pieces you want for your event. Even if you just get one piece designed for your wedding day, guests will notice and be impressed with the level of detail and thought you put into it. The best part of hiring a graphic designer is that you can hire them to do as many or as few pieces as you want. So you can definitely just get one piece made to match the style of an already sent out invitation if that’s all you need!
Most couples start thinking of these extra (or collateral) pieces one or two months prior to the wedding. If you did not have these in mind when you ordered your invitation, it’s not too late to have them made! All a graphic designer needs is a physical or digital copy of the invitation and a list of the pieces you want them to design. When considering timing, don’t forget to account for revisions and of course printing (the P part of this post!). Typically, one or two rounds of revisions are included from the designer. Once you have the final copies, the designer can send them to print. We recommend sending 7-10 days prior to the wedding.
For those of you doing a seating chart, this means you have to have your table assignments done before finalizing the design. We’ve said it before, but it’s worth saying again. This is one of the hardest tasks. Don’t put it off because it could jeopardize the printing timeline of all of the pieces!