The Essential Guide to Gay and Lesbian Weddings (44 page)

Begin to determine your guest list.

Look at other cards and invitations.

Think about wording and style.

Finalize the guest list, check it twice, decide who's naughty, who's nice, and who can be eliminated. If you're planning on sending save-the-date cards, do it now.

Shop around for your invitations (which can actually take a couple of weeks if you're one of those people who have trouble deciding on white or wheat toast for breakfast), and order them from the printer or stationer.

Collect names and addresses of your guests, check accuracy of spellings and zip codes, and make sure addresses are current.

Devise a method of keeping track of everyone on your guest list. In your tracking system you can list—in addition to RSVPs—the gift given, the correct name of the guest's significant other, and the name of the hotel your out-of-town guest has chosen.

Investigate how you are going to get your invitations addressed. Options include hiring a calligrapher, using computer-generated script, and doing it yourselves.

You get the invitations back from the printer and, boy, aren't they wonderful!
Or:
the invitations come back from the printer, and—ohmygod—they've misspelled your middle name. All is not lost. We've built in a two-week buffer zone; you have plenty of time to get hysterical, deal with the printer, and have them rush you the replacements. (Keep a few of the misprints just for posterity.)

If you're lucky, the typo is not on the outer envelope, which is the one that gets addressed—which is what you'll be doing while waiting for the redone invitations.

Get your envelopes addressed. If you hire a calligrapher, allow one to three weeks. If you're using a computer, burn a disk of your guest list from which you or a stationer can print up the envelopes.

Leave yourselves plenty of slop time when it comes to mailing your invitations. For out-of-towners, six weeks is not really unreasonable; for those in town, four weeks is probably sufficient. On the other hand, you don't want to send
the invitations so early that your guests fall into the Scarlett O'Hara “I'll think about it tomorrow” syndrome and forget about the response card altogether.