So you are about to plan your own wedding or maybe you are helping someone who is about to get married in a near future. With the planning of a wedding comes the need for a wedding program. Its easy to think of this as one of the smaller aspects of the whole party, as it fades when compared to say the planning of location, food, entertainment, etc.
However, once you get to it you will quickly realise it will take more time and effort than initially imagined. Not only do you need to come up with the content for the program, which means that you need to know where the wedding ceremony will take place, where the following party will be hosted, when it all starts, etc. The more information you can provide upfront the less question you will get in the other end, where time is a valuable resource.
So once you know the information that should be provided, you need to come up with the right wedding program wording. This will also, initially, seem like a small piece of the puzzle, but once you are at it, you will realise that it’s not. Getting the right wedding program wording can be a major hurdle which can be extremely frustrating. Thinking about what to write is easy but once you start out you realise that you never (most likely) tried to write a wedding program before.
This is not like writing an email. You need to get the wording right. The wedding program wording should match the theme of the wedding. Maybe you want to host the wedding on a beach, and then it’s really a no-go to make the wedding program wording look like something that calls for a wedding ceramony at the city hall followed by a party in a small local town.
Wedding Program Wording
Basically you need to align your wedding program wording with the theme of the wedding, the location of the wedding, and the people you invite. Also keep in mind that although you might prefer to make the wedding program look minimalistic, clean and beautiful, you should not be cheap with words. People like to get proper information. Can they bring their children, is there a special dress code or clothes suitable for the theme (like it might be a bad idea with high heels at a beach wedding), etc.
Not only should the wording be aligned with the aspects mentioned above, but you should also be careful not to upset people. If you prefer to have a wedding without children, you can write this in the wedding program, but you should do so in a proper manner.
If there is a hotel where people can sleep over, it might be a good idea to inform people that they have to pay for the stay themselves (if that is the case), so you don’t end up with upsetting people because they got the wrong impression. Again, you want to write this in a tone so you dont make it sound wrong. With the wrong wording, it can easily look like you dont want to pay for peoples room because you dont give a f… – Simply by informing people about the prices for a room, you have indicated that this is something they will have to pay for themselves.
Basically, there are a lot of things to take into consideration when it comes to getting the right wedding program wording. Because of this, its a good idea to get started early.
It is possible to find wedding program wording examples online. Actually there are quite a lot of them; some better than others naturally. These can be good for inspiration, but the main issue here naturally is, that its not very likely that you can find an example that will match all of the aspects mentioned above, for your wedding. All weddings are unique in one way or the other, and this will (or at least should) be reflected in the wedding program.
You remember how easy it was in school to get caught when you copied someone else’s essey? Yeah pretty easy right. The simple reason is that its extremely easy to tell if the content is unique and authentic, and most importantly written by yourself. Copying someone else’s text will easily give you up, as people close to you will be able to tell that this isn’t your style nor tone. Y
ou can’t really “fail” when writing your wedding program, but its just not cool that people know you haven’t put in the work required, but simply decided to take the easy way out. You should also think of the wedding program as a part of the whole event, and as such, by copying someone else’s text, you are simply starting out on the wrong foot.
Its easy to go for a simple church wedding program wording, because after all, how unique and different can it actually be? Well that is all up to you and your imagination. But if tend to be a happy and loud speaking person, it will look odd with a very calm and quite wedding program. Again, it should reflect a mixture of the couples personality along with the theme of the event.
In my oppinion, the wedding program wording should be unique. You can go look online for inspiration, but in the end (and after the event when you look back at your wedding), you will appreciate if you took your time to write the wedding program yourself. Of course, the most important part is that you are pleased with the outcome, regardless of the wedding program wording being unique or not.
But as stated above, its easy to convince yourself it wont matter that much. But looking back I promise you, you will think differently. Remember that a lot of the people whom you sent the wedding program to, will keep it forever as a memory. Do you really want a copy paste of a wedding program from the internet hanging on their refrigerator? Yeah I though so…Still searching for Wedding Program Wording “inspiration”?
As mentioned above, there are lots of places online where you can find wedding program wording examples; good and bad ones, feed and paid ones. If you simply cannot come up with anything yourself, and pretty much have decided to go for a copy paste job, I highly recommend that you at least spend a couple of bucks on it. Going with a paid option, you know there will be less people out there who have used exactly the same wording, as most people naturally go for the free option.
Again, keep in mind that this day is likely to be one of the most important days of your life. Surely you can afford to send a couple of dollars to get a bit more quality and uniqueness to you’re wedding program? Another reason, if that a lot of the people coming to your wedding are likely to get married later. So they will be in the same situation as you are in now. They will start looking online for wedding program wording examples. Here you risk the chance that they will find exactly the same example that you used in your own wedding program.
If they remember it, it’s embarrassing. If they don’t remember it, they might end up using it, which makes it embarrassing for both of you – specially at the party if someone else who were at your wedding remembers. Ouch! By going for a paid option, you are at least slightly better off, in that chances are lower that they will see it online, if they simply search for inspiration and not for a complete example which they can use.Different kind of wedding programs – invitation, church, event, thank you
You should also keep in mind that you have the option to split the wedding programs into several. No one ever said you need to have everything in the same wedding program. You can naturally go with a tri-fold wedding program and put all information in there but there are good reasons to split things up a bit.
First of all, the wedding invitation can easily contain the wedding program, but don’t expect people to remember to bring this to the actually wedding event. Naturally you need to give some information in the wedding invitation, like where the event will be hosted, how to get there, when it takes place, etc. Then you can have a wedding program at the church, which is handed out at the entrance, or simply put the programs on all the chairs.
This can simply be a wedding program with information about the happenings at the church, and where people should go afterwards. Then finally at the event, you have another wedding program, which contains information about the meals, the program for the evening, etc. The reason why it might be a good idea to split it up, is because people are likely to forget the wedding programs at the different locations.
Its also a bit strange to have a wedding program in the church which provides information about the meals later in the evening. Again, make sure things are aligned, by providing the right information at the right time and the right place.When should I send invitations?
Finally, this is something which really surprised me when I got to it. I thought I had plenty of time, to get the wedding invitations out, but turned out I didn’t. People should get the invitations in a timely manner so they can plan ahead. People tend to make plans way ahead, and you don’t want to end up hosting a wedding where no one can show up, because you sent the invitations to late.
A rule of thumb is the send the invitations 6 month before the event takes place. Some do it earlier, but you don’t really want to pass that threshold. When you know this, you can easily tell that you need to get started on your wedding program wording before you probably thought.Wedding Program Wording Conclusion
As you can tell from the thoughts above, it is of paramount importance to get started with your wedding program ahead of time. Its equally important that you take your time to consider the benefits of writing your own unique wedding program. Simple church wedding program wording or advanced tri-fold wedding program wording; you should start early and put a lot of thought into it. If will pay of in the other end.
Once the entire event is over, remember than you need to send out a “thank you” card. Make sure to use the same style to get an aligned wedding program thank you wording on the card.
The main take away from the whole thing is to get a unique wedding program wording. You can use free wedding program samples for inspiration, but I recommend you keep it at that.
If you need more ideas and inspiration, then take a look around here on A Wedding to do list. Hopefully you will find something which you find useful, and that can help you to ease the wedding program writing process. You can also read more about wedding program wording on our post How to Customize Your Wedding Program Wording
If you have any tips, tricks and ideas on how to make the perfect wedding program, get the best wording, and design, please drop a comment below and tell us what you think. We would love to hear your thoughts on how to get the best Wedding Program wording.
Make sure to read about your wedding program wording as this is one of the initial parts of of your wedding to do list. Go here to read more about how to Design Your Own Engagement Ring for the Gift of a Lifetime
