It is Your Day and guest consideration - where do you draw the line?

True Story: I recently had a bride look me dead in the eye and say “I hate my father-in-laws name, do I have to put it on my invitation?”

But here is the truth – there is no simple answer to that question. The answer comes through the process that we went through:

I asked her: “Are your in-laws helping pay for the wedding day?”
She said: “Yes”
I asked her: “Would your in-laws be offended by being left out of the invitation?”
She said: “Yes”
And finally I said to her: “We could put only Mr. and Mrs. with their last name, but I want you to think for a minute. The last thing you want to do is start a family feud or issue with your invitation – so think how important to you is your relationship you’re your Father-in-Law vs. how important it is that you dislike his name so much to think of not putting it on your invitation”

She thought for a minute and found her line between Her Day and Guest (in this case in-law) Consideration. She realized that her distaste for the name he was given was, for her, petty in comparison to the care she did have for her future father-in law.



Other places:
Think about how timing could affect your guests – send invites too late and maybe they won’t have the time to make travel arrangements, get off from work any days needed, schedule a babysitter, or even to save for a wedding gift. (not everyone has fast access to extra money for gifts or envelopes in this current economy)

If you know in particular that you have several guests with allergies – perhaps going light on flowers would make everyone’s night a little more enjoyable. (unless you want a band of sniffles and sneezes)



It is your day – for every couple there is a different definition to a “happy medium”. Give it some thought and think of your day from your guests’ point of view.


Written by: Kathleen Zagula. You can find more from her on twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+

Wedding Pricing - Myth or Malicious Intent?

A question wedding pros get so very often is – Why is the price of wedding stuff always so much more than everything else?

I went around my kitchen counter and collected some of the cards my family has either received or bought over the last year. You can see them pictured below with their prices face up. As you can see they vary from $2.25 all the way up to $4.97.

All of these cards were pressed and printed in mass amounts, all have a standard message flat printed inside. The mass amounts of cards are then separated and shipped in smaller quantities world wide. So while your local card store, pharmacy, or grocery store may only have 5 -10 of these cards, thousands of stores world wide also are selling 5 -10 of those same exact cards.

So now let’s take a look at what the difference is in these standard cards and wedding cards and how the pricing adds up.

Let’s start with obvious differences, wedding cards are personalized with your own event information, names, font choice, ink color choice, and usually printed with a thermograph, engraving press or letterpress.

So with the given differences, what do you think the difference in price will be?

Drum roll please…..

That’s right, same price, but certainly not the same card.


Also, keep in mind that more than one card per set means more than one print press set up and print press run.

Don’t forget the personal services that your professionals provide. For us at Nika Paperworks (www.nikapaperworks.com) that means hand assembly, personal service, custom designs and etiquette guidance.

So where is the value? Truth is that your $5 dollars goes a lot further in the “wedding” world of pricing.

And so it is also true with the other wedding services, personal setups from DJs, personal editing and shooting from photographers and videographers, personal and arranging from florists, and food made to just to your liking from venues.