 What is RSVP btw?!!! When Should Wedding Invitations be mailed? Ideally, wedding invitations should be mailed out 6-8 weeks before the big day to give guests time to make arrangements to attend and RSVP back to you. R.S.V.P. is a French phrase, “répondez, s’il vous plaît,” (pronounced – responday sil voo play) which means “please reply.” The person sending the invitation would ideally like you to inform him / her whether you accept or decline the invitation. That is, will you be coming to the event or not? As a lover of simplicity and directness in communication, I usually try to refrain from using colloquial terms which do not fit in one’s cultural environment. Most people in India or even in the rest of the non-French-speaking world really do not know what RSVP means. I would suggest that you simply use the following line instead. I used it for my own wedding and the response was almost 100%! “Please inform us whether you would be attending the wedding by sending an SMS saying YES with your name to this number – 9820_______” This line is simple, easy to understand and follow and gives your guests clear instructions on how to inform you! It doesn’t cost you anything to add the line above and I can guarantee you that the response rate will be almost 100% as compared to an RSVP which may save you some space on your card but does not serve any purpose. Get Organized The first step towards planning for the invites is to get organized. Remember when I had suggested a folder earlier in one of my posts? This is where it comes in especially handy! Begin by making a list of the people you must have for the wedding. This will probably be mostly relatives and close friends. Ask your parents and the groom’s parents to provide you with a list of who they would like to invite. Make sure you have accurate addresses for your guests. One caution here: don’t think you HAVE to invite everyone you know. If you haven’t talked to your college chemistry lab partner since graduation, he or she probably doesn’t need to be invited. And don’t get all caught up in possibly offending someone by not inviting them to your wedding. Often, people get sick of attending weddings for people they barely know. Unless you talk to them every day, chances are pretty good that they won’t give it a second thought when your invitation doesn’t arrive. Designing A Wedding Card Should Be A Top Priority Once you have your guest list, you’ll have an idea of how many invitations you will need. Next, you will need to pick a design. Wedding invitations shouldn’t be a big expense for you. Your invitation may be the first impression some of your quests will have. Make sure it has a neat, clean appearance. If you are not very traditional, get funky! Get a graphic designer to design you a cool wedding invite which is ALL you! Take the photoshop file from the designer and get it printed from a colour card printer – the ones that are usually found outside Mumbai’s suburban railways stations with huge yellow signboards with letter black lettering screaming – Rs. 1 PRINTING – XEROX! Get your cards printed on heavy card stock. The shops usually charge about Rs. 20 for an A3 size printout. An A3 sized card sheet should contain about twenty to twenty five cards which the printer’s boys at the back will neatly cut out for you into individual cards. So you see printing wedding invites needn’t be a huge expense in today’s times. Design – Be Daring Be Different Be Unique Have a look out the picture below. Look closely. Its not an airline ticket but a wedding invite! I would urge you to think out of the box when it comes to your wedding invite. Try not to send out those boring thick embossed wedding invites with a ganesha symbol on top. As much as I adore the elephant-headed God, I also like to celebrate individuality. A marriage is a unique celebration that celebrates the life of two individuals who are different but have come together in a union of souls. Every person is different and unique and special and so is every couple. So why should wedding cards always look the same and elicit a yawn from the guests instead of a ‘Wow!’?Type ‘Cool Wedding Invitations‘ on Google Image Search for more ideas if you are stuck for themes and design ideas for your wedding invite. A tip – try and use themes that you and your partner are passionate about. The couple below may be avid corporate high flyers and would probably be spending a lot of time traveling by air and so I guess a wedding invite in the form of an airline ticket must have struck a chord with them. Similarly write out what you are really passionate about and design a wedding invite around that. If you are a musician you could send out invites designed in the form of circular labels that could be stuck in the centre of old vinyl records procured for cheap from Chor Bazaar. If you love films then you could call your wedding ‘a premiere’ and design the invites in the form of a ‘film premiere’ pass! You are only limited by your imagination! Hope you get to create a wonderful wedding invite that celebrates you and your life together with your partner and makes the invite memorable and stick out in the minds of your family and friends! If you are finding it hard to find a good graphic designer, you could get in touch with Atin our Marketing Head on +91 98206 07875 and he will put you in touch with some good graphic designers in Mumbai. Good luck and God bless! Tania Verma is the Head of Operations at Alliance One’s Mumbai Head Office. A mechanical engineer by education, she has a wide variety of experience in various fields such as manufacturing, consumer products and services and the Retail Sector. A strong operational person Tania gets the job done however tight the deadlines and however tough and arduous the task. She excels under pressure and maintains excellent relationships with our corporate clients as well as high networth individuals all over India who have used the company’s services in the past and continue to do so. Having married recently she feels strongly about untruthful people taking advantage of others and has taken a deep and abiding interest in our matrimonial investigation services in Mumbai and leads our able team from the front.
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