Are you planning a wedding? If you've just become engaged, now is a good time to start. There are more details than you can shake a stick at, ones you may never have imagined. You want everything to be perfect and that's a tall order indeed. While there are traditional and more contemporary styles of weddings, we're going to take a look at one item in the mountain of details: contemporary wedding invitations.

Contemporary wedding invitations are usually highly personalized to the bride and groom, incorporating photographs or even paintings of the happy couple, if you have an artist in your circle of friends.

With digital technology and graphics design software, you can create backgrounds that may be printed on blank stock. If the newlyweds are honeymooning in Hawaii, a tropical scene as your background can make a happy memory live forever in this keepsake.

Contemporary wedding invitations are sometimes printed on a single high rag content card rather than the traditional note card style. This alone adds to the contemporary flavor and mood of your invitations.

You'll need to decide whether you'll have the words of the invitation printed or hand lettered.

Calligraphy is quite popular. You might consider a rapidograph to hand print invitations, complete with serifs on each letter, for a distinctive, contemporary look.

If you choose to have your invitations professionally printed, be aware there are many printing options available. Some are very pricey, and you may not find all of them suitable to for your style.

Keep your mind open when exploring these options. Engraving, embossing and thermography are some examples of printing embellishments.

Although the contemporary wedding invitations generally bend the rules a bit, certain points of protocol still apply. If you pick stock invitations, they'll come with matching envelopes. If your invitations are hand made, there are still standard sizes of papers and envelopes to match that size of paper stock.

Depending on your invitation design, you may want a colored envelope to make the perfect presentation.
Other tasks you'll need to accomplish in producing your finished invitations include ordering or designing thank you notes, creating a clear map of directions to the event and RSVP cards.

If ordering printed cards, you'll want to find out your printer's required lead time to deliver your invitations. You'll want to mail them out at least 6 weeks to 2 months in advance, so your guests will have plenty of time to adjust their schedule as necessary and make flight reservations if they'll be traveling a distance.

Now you must see how important it is to get going with planning your wedding. If you follow these tips, you'll have picture-perfect invitations. If you're feeling overwhelmed, consult with a wedding planner!