how to order

GENERAL TIMESCALES

I recommend that you place your order for stationery 9-12 months before your wedding date but no later than 6 months before. This allows for plenty of time to see samples, decide on your final design, approve your wordings and for your stationery to be made by hand. My busiest months are May - August and these dates do book up quickly.  You can pay a £50 deposit at any time to secure your date in the diary.  If the wedding is still many months away, I will file your booking and make contact with you in good time to start finalising details.

Most couples are sending their invitations out to guests around 6-8 weeks before the wedding.  I schedule to deliver day and evening invitations no later than 10 weeks before the wedding allowing you ample time to get them posted to your guests.  "On the day" items such as the order of service, place cards, menus and table plans are normally ready the week of the wedding and in my experience there are often late changes to final guest lists and seating plans so these items are often best left to the last minute.  However, I understand the all orders are unique and I always aim to be flexible if you have special requirements or need to work to a different schedule - just let me know.

THE WHOLE PROCESS - A STEP BY STEP GUIDE

1.  ORDER  SAMPLES OR BOOK A DESIGN CONSULTATION
Firstly, I strongly advise you to order samples(s) of any designs you would like to see or book an apointment for a design consultation prior to placing an order so that you can see the quality of my work.  This is the only way to see the design made in your colour scheme and to get a true impression of how it will look.  Samples can be ordered through this website from the menu on the left. Samples are charged at £4.95 each and you will receive a day invitation and matching envelope along with lots of useful information to help you through the ordering process. Due to the amount of sample requests received, the wordings inside will not be personalised at this stage, however, where applicable, you will be able to specify names/initials and dates to have the front of the invitation customised.

2.  PLACE YOUR ORDER AND PAY YOUR DEPOSIT
Once you are ready to place an order, you should get in touch by email or telephone to arrange payment of a deposit.  At this stage, you will need to know the numbers required of each item (invitations, orders of service, place cards etc).  I will send you a quotation based on these numbers along with confirmation of the 25% deposit that will be required to get your order booked in the diary.  Once your deposit has been received, you will receive written confirmation that your order is booked.

If you know that you would like to book me for your stationery, but are not ready to decide on a specific design or don't know your requirements / numbers, you can pay a £50 deposit at any time to reserve your space in the diary.  When you're ready to move forward with your order, I will provide a quotation and the balance of the 25% deposit will be payable.

3.  THE PROOFING PROCESS BEGINS
I will then ask you to send your invitation wordings by email and I will prepare your layouts which will be returned to you by email in PDF format.  You should make amendments / corrections as necessary and I will send them back for further approval.  This process will continue until you are entirely happy with all wordings and layouts. 

4.  SIGN OFF YOUR WORDINGS & PROVIDE FINAL NUMBERS
Sign off will be done by email with paper copies only being sent on request.  Wordings must be signed off no later than 14 weeks before the wedding.  When you sign off your wordings, you will also be required to confirm your last and final numbers for production.  This is the minimum number you will be charged for.  At this stage you should also email your list of guest names to be printed on invitations and addresses for envelopes if you have opted for any of these additional services.  Once everything has been received, production will commence on your invitations.  I will be in touch as soon as they are completed to arrange delivery or collection.

As soon as you have the information, you should start to forward wording for other items e.g. orders of service, menus, names for place cards, table plans etc.  These items are normally ready the week of the wedding but it is never too soon to pass the information to me so that I can start work on them.

A WORD OF ADVICE!

I strongly recommend you order more invitations than you have initially calculated for.  Many customers come back for extras and while I will always try and meet these requests, I cannot guarantee space in the production schedule as I will have moved on to making other customers' orders.  In addition, although I always over order slightly to allow for any increase in numbers, I may not have enough of your materials in stock to make extra invitations, which can then cause a delay if a special order needs to be made.  This is especially important if your design uses the Envelopments products which have to be shipped from America.  If you have opted for the guest name / envelope printing option, I recommend ordering about 5-10 blank invitations just to be on the safe side.

SUMMARY OF TIMESCALES