First, choose your stationery designer. Easier said than done, I know, but it's worth doing a bit of research and taking a little time to find the right designer for you. It's important that you like the examples of their work but it's also very important that you can have a good working relationship with them. Communication is going to be the key and your designer should have excellent communication skills if the process is going to go smoothly. Most wedding stationers can work by email, phone or in person by appointment. If you prefer the in person approach then it's advisable to choose a designer who is local to you and a great way to do this is to attend some local wedding fairs or to search Google Places listings for wedding stationers local to you.
Once you have selected your wedding stationer the design process begins in earnest. You may have given the designer a brief idea of what you are after when you first contacted them and got some estimates. Now it's time to expand on those ideas. For some of course, this part is easy because they know exactly what they want, but from my experience most clients only have a general idea at the beginning. Because of this the design process can move forward in one of three ways; designer lead, client lead, or a collaborative approach.
In a designer lead approach, the wedding stationer presents ideas to the client, gauges likes and dislikes from their responses, and then presents further ideas until a design becomes consolidated and agreed. In this approach, the client is not required to generate any creative ideas themselves, rather they just respond in a positive or negative way to the creative ideas presented to them. This is a great option for clients who would not consider themselves a natural creative but know what they like when they see it.
For clients that already have a very clear idea of where they are going with the design of their stationery, the client lead approach is the way forward. Here it's the client that presents the ideas and the wedding stationer that puts those ideas together and presents them for approval. It's worth noting at this stage that every wedding stationer will have their own way of doing this. I present my clients with images (via email) of how their invitations will look (very realistic ones, I might add), rather than making physical samples. I do this because I can make variations, change colours, fonts, embellishments etc. fairly quickly and easily and get more images sent than I could making physical samples. I also do not need to pass on additional cost to my clients to cover the design process or the expense of making multiple samples. Not all wedding stationers will work this way, and whether the approach is designer lead or client lead it's worth finding out in advance whether you will be charged additional costs for the design process and for any samples made. If there is a design fee charged make sure you understand exactly how much that covers...is it just one design? Does it include any tweaks to the design? Are multiple designs covered? Is there a time frame, i.e. does the fee cover a certain, limited, number of hours of design work?
A collaborative approach is a melding of the designer and client lead approaches. Here both the designer and the client bring creative ideas to the table and the designer puts it all together. A collaborative approach is great for those clients who have a really good feel for what they want, and probably have a selection of examples that they like already collected together, who just need a designer to help add a little extra to make their invitations unique to them and their wedding, and to produce their invitations.Whichever approach suits you, if you have chosen the right designer for you it won't take long for the design to be finalised. At this point the wedding stationer will require any information from you to complete the text elements of your invitations; details of your wedding venue, date, time etc. You should also be given options as the format of the wording of your invitations. The wedding stationer then combines this information with the approved design and creates what is called a 'Proof'.
Most good wedding stationers will do their utmost to check grammar and spelling for you, however it is very, very important to note that when the proofs are sent to you it is absolutely your responsibility to check the text and to make sure there are no errors. It is written into the terms and conditions of every wedding stationer that the cost of producing more invitations because there was an error not picked up by the client at the proof stage, is borne by the client. So, check and double check. Get someone else to check it as well...it never ceases to amaze me how one person can pick up on something that someone else has missed even though they have been looking at it for ages!
Once you have approved your designs and text the process enters it's final stage; production. This is where your invitations will be physically manufactured. This may involve print runs, and cut runs, and embossing or hot foiling...it may be predominantly done by machine or it may nearly all be done by hand (depending entirely on the type and design of the invitations) but essentially as the client, you need not worry about this part at all. A good wedding stationer will keep you up to date with progress reports and completion estimates, so the only thing for you to do now is look forward to receiving your beautiful, unique invitations....and then of course, send them to your guests! (I would advise taking advantage of any guest name printing or envelope addressing services your stationer might offer, especially if you have a large number to send out!)
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