Destination weddings have become increasingly popular over the last decade, and creating destination wedding invitations usually requires an elaborate design process that often involves the close collaboration of the couple & their planning team, the stationery designer, the venue, and other vendors. Because the idea of traveling to Provence, Tuscany, or Cabo to celebrate your love with your friends and family is a fun idea - we have created this list of tips to help guide you through some of the nitty gritty details to consider, to hopefully keep the planning (and printing!) process fun too.
Etiquette and Destination Wedding Invitations
Save the Dates are a quick and easy way to communicate the most important details of your celebration - where and when is it happening - giving both your guests plenty of time to plan their travel, and you some space to iron out the specifics which you will share later in your invitations and/or wedding website.
Save the Date from The Hedonist Collection for a destination wedding in Provence.
A Save the Date rarely requires more than two or three lines of text, and besides it’s obvious functional role, it should also serve to create a little bit of excitement and suspense for your guests. Our Save the Dates from The Hedonist collection often feature just four blind embossed words in the middle that give guests a little teaser of what is to come.
What to include
A destination wedding invitation usually includes anywhere between 3 and 7 pieces, depending on how many events you’re having and the amount of logistical details you feel is necessary to share. Sometimes, not all guests are invited to all the events so you may have 2 or 3 lighter variations of your full suite.
Ceremony Invitation: Usually the primary piece is only details your names and the ceremony details including time, venue, reception and attire information. This is usually the largest and thickest piece in the suite.
Weekend Itinerary Insert: If you are having multiple events over the weekend, this is where you would list the venues, times, and attire for each of these events - and perhaps any transport information if you will be shuttling guests to and from accommodation and venues. Most often this includes a Rehearsal Dinner or Welcome Cocktails on a Friday evening, the Ceremony & Reception on Saturday preceded by an activity or recommendation for Saturday morning, and a Sunday brunch.
Travel/Accommodation Insert: Here you may include airport and hotel information, and a call to visit the wedding website if you have one to make any bookings via links.
Generic Details Insert: If you don’t have a lot of information, you may want to combine the itinerary & travel inserts into a single piece that will list everything your guests need to know.
Separate Event Invitations: If you would like a fuller and more luxurious suite, or aren’t planning on inviting all of your guests to all the weekend’s events, including separate invitations to a welcome party, rehearsal dinner, or Sunday brunch may be necessary.
RSVP Card & Envelope or Online RSVP Insert: Even if you are having guests RSVP through your website, it is helpful to include an insert that will direct them to the link and provide a deadline by which to respond.
Assembly Band: Depending on the number of pieces, you will likely need an assembly band to hold everything together, and all of this will then go into an outer envelope addressed to each individual guest.
Stylistic considerations
Because destination wedding invitations often include a lot of inserts and information, keeping the design and layout as simple as possible is essential. You don’t want your guests to feel overwhelmed! Our collection The Hedonist takes its inspiration from boutique and design hotels - using a modern sans-serif in varying sizes to clearly organize and convey logistical details in a way that feels stylish.
Rather than overloading our designs with colors and illustrations that may be reflective of the venue and/or destination (yellow lemons for the Amalfi coast!) we prefer a subtler approach of capturing the vibe through a color palette with perhaps a single accent color.
Bilingual destination wedding invitations
Couples who opt for destination weddings often come from different countries and may need to cater to guests and families who may not speak English, or simply wish to combine and honor both of their cultures through a bilingual invitation.
RSVP Options for Destination Weddings
If you have guests coming from various places around the world, collecting RSVPs through a website is both the surest and most affordable way to receive all your responses in a timely and organized way. If you do however send out printed RSVP cards with envelopes for your guests to mail back, note that all your international guests won’t need a postage stamp on their envelope - as they will need to purchase a local one to use.
When to send your destination wedding invitations
If you have already mailed out Save the Dates and/or shared a link to your website where guests will RSVP, the printed invitation can be mailed out 2-3 months ahead of the wedding date. If you don’t plan on sending out a Save the Date or having a website, you may want to send your invitations out 6-12 months earlier, depending on how far the destination is and how big a trip it will be for your guests.
Be sure to confirm with the venue and other vendors such as the caterer when they need final guest count numbers by and ensure you set your RSVP deadline accordingly.
SeT UP A WEDDING WEBSITE
Similar to Save the Dates, a wedding website offers you the opportunity to communicate some details early on, and easily add updates and more information as you get further along in the wedding process. Websites also offer additional functionality to complement your printed stationery:
Including click through links to accommodation booking, venues on Google Maps, things to do and see in the area and more.
A quick and easy way to collect and organize RSVPs, especially if you have guests around the world in places where the postal service is less reliable.
The opportunity to add more content than you would ordinarily have room to print within your invitation suites
The Hedonist Wedding Website, photograph by Taylor & Porter.
We have recently introduced wedding website design and development, in the style of each of our collections, which enables you to keep the asethetic consistent throughout your planning and event, as well as leave some of the planning work to us! Click here to see a demo website from this collection.
Example of a destination wedding invitation
The Hedonist is one of our most popular collections. Click here to visit the collection page and see more Save the Dates, Invitation Suites, and Day of Stationery in this style.