How to Personalize Your Wedding Invitation

While wedding invitations are customary and expected, you can make yours stand out--even during a crowded wedding season!  There are always ways to play up your wedding invitation wording and take it way beyond cookie-cutter. Warm, creative, and thoughtful wording ensures that opening up and reading your wedding invitation will be a meaningful moment for your wedding guests.

Once you've nailed down the necessary details on your wedding invitation, you get to play around with the wording and liven it up wtih personal touches. Here are some basic ideas for crafting unique wedding invitation wording:

Relate Your Wording to Your Invitation Photo
Depending on how you format your wedding invitation, a fabulous, personal element to consider adding is a picture of the bride and groom. Your wedding invitation wording can then play off the theme or setting of your photo. For instance, if you include a picture of you and your fiance on the deck of a cruise ship from last summer's adventure, include some nautical themes ("Come Sail Away With Us As We Tie the Knot!"). Or if you include a picture of the two of you in a flower patch from a recent garden festival, use it to inspire for wording like, "Witness our Love Blossoming as We Grow Into Marriage." Paired with a special photograph, wedding invitation wording takes on new and clever meaning.

Tell Your Own Fairy Tale
Weddings almost always take place in the last chapter of classic fairy tales, so why not treat your own occasion like one? Kick off your wedding invitation wording with the iconic "Once Upon a Time" phrase, and give a brief story about how you and your spouse met. You can even weave in some fairy tale elements within your tale, with you and your spouse playing the parts of noble prince and princess. Your wedding symbolizes the start of a new life together, so let your invitation express the notion that "Happily Ever After" is just beginning.

Emphasize the Importance of Friends and Family
Your wedding is meant to include the people who mean the most to you, so this can play a key role in the tone of your wedding invitation. Your wedding invitation can also serve as a very powerful thank you note, expressing gratitude to the people who have been with you every step of the way. Your friends and family will feel honored, and excited to join you for this next phase of your life.

Have a Twist on Childhood Rhymes
"First comes love, then comes marriage…." In childhood it's common to joke about marriage--as something to avoid! But now that the occasion is finally happening, it could be fun to include some of the old, familiar rhymes that from the playground as the playful opening line of your wedding invitation. "John and Jane, sitting in a tree," or "Roses are Red, Violets are blue, Brenda and Mark are getting married, and we want to see you!" The possibilities are endless, and can tap into some sweet nostalgia.

Include Wedding-Related Song Lyrics
Love and marriage are popular topics for singers in every music genre, so your favorite song lyrics can flow right into your invitation. There are endless options to choose from: "Be My Baby" from the Ronettes, "Someday We'll Be Together" by the Supremes, and of course, The Dixie Cups "Chapel of Love" ("Going to the Chapel and We're Gonna Get Married"). We often associate some of our most precious memories with music, so it's a natural fit for your wedding invitation.

What is Smilebox?

Our simple application for PC or Mac lets you quickly and easily create slideshows, invitations, greetings, collages, scrapbooks and photo albums right on your computer. To get started, download and install the Smilebox application. Then simply select the photos you want to use, choose a template, add comments and music and voila, you’ve made a Smilebox! With more than 1,000 customizable templates to choose from, you’ll find inspiration around every corner.