How to match your wedding invitation to your venue

Match your invitation to your venue by echoing three things your guests will see on the day: the building, the season and the colours of the place. Then set the formality to match the room. Borrow one or two details rather than a picture of everything, and the invitation will feel as if it belongs there.

Most of your guests have not seen the venue yet. The invitation is their first look at it, so it helps when the two agree. A guest who opens an invitation in ivory and gold, then walks into a barn hung with dried flowers, feels a small jolt. One who opens a drawing of the barn door feels they have arrived.

What should an invitation borrow from the venue?

Four things, in this order. Write a word or two for each before you look at a single design.

• The architecture. What the place is built from and its best detail: red brick and a clock tower, white stucco and tall windows, oak beams, a stone arch.
• The season. A June garden and a December garden are different places. So are the same lake in May and in October.
• The colour. One main colour and one accent from the venue itself: the stone, the paint on the doors, the flowers in the beds.
• The formality. A ballroom asks for engraved type and a request line. A field with bunting asks for a warmer line and a lighter hand.

Then add the light at the hour of your ceremony. A villa on Lake Como is pale stone and soft evening sun. A walled garden in Kent is old brick, green lawn and white flowers. A London hotel ballroom is cream, gold and candlelight. Those few words usually point to a look.

What suits each kind of venue?

Some places have a note of their own: Lake Como wedding invitations, Amalfi Coast wedding invitations and winter wedding invitation ideas.

What should you avoid?

• The venue’s own logo. It makes the invitation look like the venue’s brochure.
• Too many motifs. One doorway or one flower is a signature. Six are wallpaper.
• A season that is not yours. Autumn leaves on a June invitation confuse the guests who read it in March.
• Type that only works on paper. Most guests will read at least part of it on a phone, so check the smallest line at phone size.
• A photograph of the venue that you do not have the right to use. Ask the photographer or the venue first, or use a drawing.

Does the shape of the day change the choice?

Yes. The venue decides the look, and the day decides how much the invitation must carry. A ceremony and dinner on one day needs the time, the place and the reply. A weekend of events needs a page or a card for each, so the welcome drinks, the ceremony and the brunch do not blur. A wedding abroad needs travel details early, and two families who read different languages need both on the invitation.

Do you need photographs for the invitation?

Only if the design you love is built around them. Some invitations hang your photographs like prints on a wall, and some need none at all, because they are drawn or painted.

So be honest about what you have. If your engagement shoot is next spring and the invitations go out this winter, choose a design that does not wait for it. If you have ten years of pictures you love, choose one that gives them room.

How do you brief a designer about your venue?

Send the same short brief to any designer or stationer. It saves a round of guesses.

• Three photographs of the venue: the outside, the room you marry in, and one detail you love.
• The month and the hour of the ceremony.
• Three words for the mood, such as “quiet, green, old” or “bright, salty, late”.
• One colour you want and one you do not.
• How formal the day is, and whether there is a dress code.
• Every event guests are invited to, and the languages they read.
• One invitation you love, from anywhere, and the reason you love it.

Before you decide, stand in the venue at the hour of your ceremony and take one photograph. That picture is the best brief you can give anyone, and our note on what to include on a wedding invitation covers the words that go with it.