My best friend and I recently threw a wedding shower for a college friend. We thought it would be fun and different to create the wedding shower invitations from scratch. We considered ourselves pretty creative people. We got lots of practice sewing and bedazzling things on the cheap, since we were in a sorority. So, off we went to make our own smashingly dazzling wedding shower invitations. Given our experience, I thought it would be helpful to put together a list of tips for those of you embarking on the same journey.
Before you begin your inspired journey to the perfect wedding shower invitations, check with the bride to make sure she is cool with you unleashing your creativity. That does not entail spoiling the secret or giving away all the details. But some brides have very definite ideas of what their showers and weddings will be like. It is my belief that women like that would probably never agree to hand over the planning reins to someone else other than themselves in the first place. You probably know your bride well enough, so this may not be an issue and you can check this box and carry on.
I am not going to go into detail about what kind of wedding shower invitations you can create, because the possibilities are limitless. If you have a special theme for the shower, your invitations will probably tie into that. If there is no theme for the party, then just make those wedding shower invitations to be different, beautiful or entertaining.
Now, listen closely, because this next paragraph is what is most important. The meat of your wedding shower invitations, the information inside that tells people what to do and where to go, should be proofread many times. It often helps to have a fresh pair of eyes look at it, since a mistake you have been looking at for so long might look normal at this point. I have seen lots of tips that say your invitations should be written in proper British English. I do not think that is totally necessary, unless you are inviting the Queen. Quality check everything, so that there are no grammatical errors or misspellings. Assure that you have the correct date, time and year on your invitations. Check that the name of the location is spelled correctly and that the address is accurate. Attach some directions if you know the address is confusing or does not make sense when you mapquest it. Be clear on the invitation that guests should RSVP with a yes or no. Some people assume you do not need to RSVP if you are not going to attend. Conversely, there are plenty of people that assume you know they are coming unless they tell you no. This makes planning difficult. No matter what you do, you will have a couple guests that forgot to RSVP and come anyway or those who do not show up after RSVPing. But, by making it explicit on the wedding shower invitations, you increase your odds of a good headcount tremendously. Having a clear RSVP statement, however, will give you a better chance with planning. Most people assume "shower" means only women, so if men are invited, be sure to be clear about that on the invitation somewhere too. The last thing is to provide some guidelines for the attendees on dress and gifts, if the shower has a theme. "Come dressed as your favorite rock star from the 80s and bring a bottle of wine to stock the cellar."