I wanted to post this except I recently shared with Ashley from Toney Consulting. For the full article, including advice from other industry pros, check out her blog here.
Planning wedding stationery during COVID has definitely looked different than ever before. There’s a high level of uncertainty and stress around invitations this year, considering they go out months before the wedding, at a time when things are changing day by day. First, we are recommending couples be flexible on when they mail out their invitations. Normally we recommend 3 months in advance, but pushing it closer to the traditional 6-8-week mark may make it easier to be more certain about your guest list. Some have even pushed it to one month prior.
Even still, couples find themselves in the position of needing to make last minute changes. There are a few things we have done to work with this, the most widely used being a small insert included with your invitations saying something to the effect of, “We are monitoring the situation and will be in touch with any changes.” This card includes the wedding website (even if its a free, single page site) that can be a single point of contact for guests to check for updates without constantly calling or texting. Another piece we’ve done a few times now are cards for guests who have already received a Save the Date and/or invitation, letting them know the couple has had to cut the guest list, and they are essentially being uninvited. (Though the wording is a bit nicer than this.)
And in the case of a postponement, we have been doing “Change the Date” cards, which have ranged from simple digital designs to email guests, to elaborate and custom printed pieces to carry the feeling of a luxury event through every detail. There are no perfect answers right now, we just recommend that our couples do what works best for their style and budget.
We also have created options for guests wanting to attend virtually, we are trying to cover every possibility for our couples to take some of the stress off of all this uncertainty. We anticipate we will need to continue to be creative and flexible with our wedding stationery, at least through to the Spring.