Wedding month - Invitation etiquette by Ruby & Swallow

Meet Durban based graphic designers Kim & Filipa. They design the most stunning event stationery and write a design and lifestyle blog, which we simply love to follow - Ruby & Swallow.  They love all things wedding and share wedding tips, trends and even venues with their readers.  Their stationery is beautifully hand crafted, designs are unique and have a modern edge.

As part of our Wedding Month and the launch of our Gift Registry service we asked the girls from Ruby & Swallow to write a piece for us about invitation etiquette.  It is so hard to choose appropriate wording with regards to wedding gifts and gift registry's. I knew these girls would have the answers!

Grab a cuppa and have a read...

Putting together your wedding invitations can be the most wonderful - and trying - time of your planning. Not only might you have to deal with choosing a colour palette, style, stationery budget and fonts, but you'll also have to decide on your invitation wording. This may seem easy enough, but after families, parents and fiance's get involved, our experience has taught us that this can be the hardest part of putting together an invitation!

In particular, the gift registry part can be the most difficult to word and many find it quite uncomfortable because couples nowadays aren't always choosing traditional registries. Traditionally, couples lived at home before getting married and this meant they needed everything to set up their new home as a married couple. Today, many couples have either lived together or have moved out of home long before getting hitched, and therefore have everything they need for their homes.

This means that engaged couples are not always going for standard wedding registries, and there are so many more options to choose from nowadays. There are online shops such as Yuppiechef, Gift Tree and Esque, as well as many local stores such as The Ruby Orchard providing wonderful items and ideas for wedding registries. Many couples also prefer to ask for money, as a contribution to their new life together or their honeymoon. 

With all of the above in mind, this makes wording for your gift list rather hard and many brides and grooms are so aware of not wanting to offend their guests. Something that we tell all of our clients is that their guests will always want to buy them a gift, regardless of what it is, and it's always more helpful when they know what kind of gift you would like to receive, be it from a gift list or if you'd prefer money.

 There are so many different views and opinions on gift list wording, but we have listed a few examples below that include to-the-point wording as well as simple and sweet poems. 

 1. "Your presence at our wedding is gift enough, but if you do wish to buy us something, a contribution towards our dream honeymoon/home would be appreciated." 

 2. "If you're thinking of giving us a gift, to help us on our way, a gift of cash towards our honeymoon, would really make our day." 

 3. "The most important gift to us is to have you share our day, but should you wish to contribute in some other way, then a contribution to our honeymoon would be very gratefully received." 

 4. "Your presence, not presents is all that we require, but if you would like to gift us something to start our married life together, you will find our registry at Woolworths and Boardmans." 

 5. "Please donʼt feel obliged to buy us a gift, we just want you to come have a good time with us! However, if you prefer to purchase a gift, feel free to surprise us!" 

Don't let the process of choosing wording for your invitation and gift list become too overwhelming! Go with your first instincts and decide on what it is you and your fiancé really want. Of course, professionals such as stationery designers or shop registry organisers can help you out along the way!

Such great suggestions for brides to be, Thank you so much Kim & Filipa.

Now hop on over to their blog for some pretty inspiration, a gallery full of their work and great links to wedding venues and photographers - Ruby & Swallow.