Everything You Need to Know About an Online Wedding Invitation Maker

With so many wedding trends out there, one mainstay is that couples want to have a hand in designing their perfect wedding invitations. These custom designs allow them to personalize their wedding stationery and make them as unique as possible. An online wedding invitation maker puts all of the power into the couple’s hands, as they work through each step to fully customize their dream designs. 

In this guide, we’ll show couples everything they need to know about paid and free online wedding invitation maker options, including how you can create your own through Bliss & Bone’s website. Plus, we’ll give a few ideas on how to build out a complete collection with other Bliss & Bone products, such as wedding logos and wedding menus.

What Is an Online Wedding Invitation Maker?

An online wedding invitation maker is any website that provides wedding couples with a service to create wedding invitations. These digital platforms are a more updated version of traditional wedding invitation makers. In the past, wedding couples would go to a professional stationer and share all of their preferences for their cards. In most cases, you would see past examples of invitations and then request specific changes and additions. You can still do this with a local professional, but it has become more commonplace to seek out an online wedding invitation maker. 

Additional perks related to choosing an online wedding invitation maker is that there’s extra efficiency, especially if you’re working with a shorter timeline. Wedding planning timelines are different for everyone, but if you only have a few months, an online wedding invitation maker can save you a lot of time. Most often, it takes weeks or even months to work through proofs of wedding invites before giving your final approval, but you can complete all of the steps involved in an online wedding invitation maker within minutes. If you have all of the information, for both the wedding and your guests, you can fill everything out and send them off to your family and friends in one sitting. 

What You’ll Need to Do Before Using an Online Wedding Invitation Maker 

So, what does planning look like before you’re ready to use an online invitation maker? The mandatory steps to follow are related to solidifying where and when you’re getting married. Here’s what you should do prior to choosing the best online wedding invitation maker for you and your partner’s big day:

1. Identify your budget. Everyone’s budget is different and wedding costs have been hiked up significantly over the years. That’s why it’s crucial that you and your partner get on the same page about how much you are able to spend on everything from your wedding venue to stationery. If anyone else is helping pay for your wedding, you can include them in your budgeting discussion as well. And if you’re feeling a bit lost, hiring a professional wedding planner can give you more insights into what your overall costs should amount to for the event.
2. Decide on the date and venue. In the early stages of planning, you want to determine whether you want a long or short engagement. Depending on your answer, you should start reaching out to wedding venues in your desired area and schedule tours to see them in person. Some choose a venue, site unseen, but it’s important to get a real feel for the space by visiting and learning more about these places. When you find the best one for you, make sure they have a date that works for you and the key people in your life, and then submit your deposit. 
3. Hire other wedding vendors. Most vendors will need to know your venue, date, and planner before you book with them. So, at this stage of the process, you should do some outreach and see if various professionals are available. This may include a professional stationer, or you can ask your planner for recommendations on a top online wedding invitation maker. 
4. Design your wedding website and Save the Dates. Approximately six to nine months ahead of your celebration, you’ll want to send out your Save the Dates. These typically feature when and where you’re getting married, along with a link to your wedding website. Save the Dates can be prepared as online or printed invitations, and you can use an online wedding invitation maker to create them. By selecting a creator who can design complementary invites, you will have a more complete, cohesive collection both you and your guests will appreciate.

By this point in the planning phase, you should be prepared to use an online wedding invitation maker to design the formal invitations. It’s most common to design digital wedding invites through an online wedding invitation maker, but there are some resources that offer both. For example, Bliss & Bone’s online wedding invitation maker can allow you to order printed or digital invites. All of this said, digital invites will cut your timeline significantly, so they’re your best option if you’re in a hurry. By the end of this stage, you should send out your formal invites about two to three months before the big day.

Comparing Paid Offerings to a Free Online Wedding Invitation Maker

You have a variety of options when it comes to choosing an online wedding invitation maker. Some require a subscription fee, while others are free. An online wedding invitation maker for free will have a selection of premade templates that you can edit with your specific details, including the names of the hosts, the wedding couple’s names, the date and venue details, wedding attire, and anything else you want to include. 

There are plenty of pros and cons for a paid and free online wedding invitation maker, but paid offerings typically come with extra perks. These include: 

• More design options: When you pay for your wedding invitation, as opposed to going through an online wedding invitation maker, you have more design templates to choose from. These end up costing approximately $1 per card, and you only need to send one to each party. If you are planning to order printed invitations through the online wedding invitation maker, this will cost a bit more — starting at $257.50 for 25 cards at Bliss & Bone. 
• Additional notable features: A free online wedding invitation maker comes with a few limitations, like what you can do with your card. With a paid online wedding invitation maker like Bliss & Bone, you are able to edit your design by moving around or adding three-dimensional objects, shadow overlays, and more. 
• End-to-end creation: If you decide to go with a free online wedding invitation maker, you will likely only get a free template that you download. However, downloads may come with a watermark or other roadblock that you wouldn’t want featured on your card. Not only that, but with a paid online wedding invitation maker, you also have the flexibility and support of a team who will walk you through the process. At Bliss & Bone, our team will provide you with answers to any questions you have along the way, making it a more hands-on design structure. 

While an online wedding invitation maker for free sounds appealing, it will typically come with paywalls and other limitations that can impede on your creative process. To give yourself more options and support, paying for a sophisticated online wedding invitation maker is highly recommended. 

How to Create Your Own Invites with Bliss & Bone’s Online Wedding Invitation Maker

If you ultimately decide to go with a paid online wedding invitation maker, Bliss & Bone is a premier destination for unique and fully customizable designs. To get a better idea of what the design process looks like within our online wedding invitation maker, see the steps below:

1. Review the online wedding invitation templates. From tropical to classic, there are so many themes that work with Bliss & Bone templates. You and your partner should review them all before deciding on the best one for you. 
2. Customize your own, starting with the card itself. When you’ve found the one you love, click “Customize,” which will take you to the online builder section. You can choose which color you want shown on the page, or if you love the look of the template as-is, you can move forward to the next step.
3. Edit the background. The next decision you’ll make is about the background, or the space behind the virtual card you’ll later personalize with all of your wedding details. 
4. Make changes to the text. Perhaps the most important part of the process is inserting all of your event-specific details. You’ll want to pay special attention to prominently featuring your and your partner’s names, and double-checking that the date, time, and venue name and address are clear and accurate. 
5. Incorporate card effects or shadow overlays. One of the benefits of the Bliss & Bone online wedding invitation maker is that you can add unique features like a border, drop shadow, or shadow overlay. These give your invites more movement and drama, which makes them stand out compared to what you can craft with a free online wedding invitation maker. 
6. Add, remove, or move around three-dimensional objects, illustrations, and graphics. Another standout quality of Bliss & Bone’s offerings is the number of customizations you can make with objects, illustration, and graphics. You can also expand their size, or remove any that you don’t want to feature on the original template. 
7. Upload a logo. To further customize your wedding invitation, we suggest creating a logo or monogram, which is a creative addition you can use on any wedding stationery. 
8. Input details for the email and event page guests will receive. Your guests will receive your wedding invitation via email, and that will take them to your event page. In this part of the design process, you have the opportunity to say whether you want to collect RSVPs, include a map, and more. Keep in mind that most wedding couples choose to collect RSVPs via their wedding website. 
9. Complete a form with your guests’ details. In the “Recipients” part of the online wedding invitation maker, you’ll want to download a form that you’ll fill out with your guests names and email addresses. 
10. Add your payment details and send. 

Designing Coordinating Stationery After Using an Online Wedding Invitation Maker

When you create invites with Bliss & Bone’s online wedding invitation maker, it will probably be after you’ve designed a wedding website and Save the Dates, too. A full wedding stationery collection through Bliss & Bone may also include the following:

• Rehearsal dinner invitations: You can find digital and printed templates for your rehearsal dinner invites. While it’s customary for the groom’s parents to take care of this part of the planning, you can request that they use Bliss & Bone’s templates.
• Wedding menus: Even if you choose a fully digital wedding stationery set, your wedding menus will be a printed piece handed out at your wedding. These are displayed at each table setting and share the courses they can expect to have at the reception. 

Other stationery items you’ll want to consider are thank you notes, wedding programs, and a seating chart display, among other popular digital and paper products. All of these can have the same colors and fonts as the rest of your stationery. Talk everything through with your wedding invitation designer to see how you can make a personalized collection. 

Getting Started with Your Online Wedding Invitation Maker at Bliss & Bone

As you weigh your options for an online wedding invitation maker for free or not, consider the capabilities outlined above. When you purchase a set of invitations through Bliss & Bone, you get high-end designs and the support of our team. If you run into any questions during your process, you can always fill out a form online or email us at hello@blissandbone.com. We are eager to help you create the best possible wedding invitations you and your partner will cherish for years to come.