Planning a wedding is super exciting but it can be time consuming and stressful at times too.

I think most couples are surprised by how much thought and admin goes into each aspect of the day, particularly when it comes to wedding stationery.

If you’re at the start of your wedding planning journey, these 5 top tips should help the stationery side of things run a little more smoothly.

1 - ORDER SPARES

This may sound obvious, but I always recommend ordering spares. If you get a few people RSVPing ‘no’, you might then want to send an invitation out to someone else that didn’t quite make the original list.

It’s also a good idea to have spares in case you make a mistake when you’re addressing the envelopes (it happens to the best of us).

And don’t forget to put a spare set aside for you to keep too! You can also use it for pretty flat lay photos on the day (your photographer will love you for it).

The best way to work out the quantity you need is to group everyone into couples/families, then add an extra 5-10% on as spares. Most stationers (myself included) have minimal order quantities, so if you need to order a few extras later down the line you might end up paying a premium.

2 - ORDER SAMPLES

There are so many stationery options online (especially for save the dates and invitations) and to be honest, sometimes it’s hard to see exactly what you’re getting from just a photo. Once you’ve found a stationery designer you love, find out if they have any samples available. You’ll get to see the quality of the printing and the paper in real life, before you spend potentially a lot of money on the real thing.

3 - DON’T FORGET POSTAGE COSTS

When you’re figuring out your wedding stationery budget, don’t forget to factor in the cost of stamps too. Postage has gone up a lot recently, it’s now 75p for a 2nd class stamp and £1.10 for 1st class (prices correct as of April 2023), so if you’re sending out lots of save the dates and invitations, it’s going to add up!

Bonus tip: If you’re having lots of inserts and are including things like ribbon or wax seals, make sure to check the size at your local post office just in case it goes into ‘large letter’ territory, which could end up costing you a bit more.

4 - CHECK, CHECK AND CHECK AGAIN

Whether you’re making your own invitations and ‘day of’ stationery items or working with a stationer, you need to be vigilant when it comes to checking your wording. Mistakes happen, especially when you’re overtired and have probably had way too much screen time. A wedding stationer will be able to flag obvious things, but when it comes to spellings of names or places, we may not be able to tell if there’s an error. For example, some names can be spelt different ways so your stationer probably isn’t going to know that Uncle Brian spells his name with an ‘i’ and not a ‘y’.

It’s always a good idea to get a reliable third pair of eyes on everything before it goes to print. So make sure to enlist a friend or family member with a good eye for spelling and grammar to help.

5 - DON’T FORGET YOUR ‘DAY OF’ STATIONERY

During the run up to the wedding, there’s often a lot of focus on invitations (and I completely understand why, they’re my favourite part too!) but don’t forget about those all-important ‘day of’ stationery items.

As well as being a way to tie all of your styling together on the day, your ‘day of’ stationery serves a really important purpose too by helping your wedding run smoothly.

Your signage and seating plan guides your guests to where they need to go, your menus remind them what they chose to eat (because they always forget, trust me) and your order of service gives them that all important rundown of your ceremony.

A lot of couples tend to leave this part of the planning until the last minute but trust me when I say, you’ll have a much more pleasant experience on the run up to the wedding if you get it organised earlier. I usually like to get couples booked in around 8 weeks before the day, that way you should have your RSVPs back and will have a clear idea of what you need and how you want everything to look.

If you’d like to find out more about the different ‘day of’ items available, click here.

Hopefully you’ve found those tips useful and that they’ll help save you some unnecessary stress (and hopefully some costs too).

All photos are by the talented Natalie Stevenson Photography.

Flowers in the two tablescapes are by the wonderful Queen & Eden.