Wedding Programs
Your Wedding programs will allow your guests to feel involved in your wedding. The more guests feel involved with your wedding, the more likely it is that they will enjoy themselves. So, wedding programs serve not only as wonderful keepsakes, but they will also allow your guests to follow along with the ceremony and understand meaningful readings or traditions you're incorporating. An additional idea is to include wedding party bios, to helps familiarize everyone with the most important people in your lives.
Getting Your Wedding Programs Right
What's Included
All traditional wedding program begins with the full names of the bride and groom, the wedding date, and the city and state where they are getting married. Following this info, are the elements of the ceremony. These may include:
- Names of the musical selections, and perhaps the lyrics if they're especially meaningful to you and your partner,
- Composers and the performers,
- The titles of the readings, the authors, and the names of the readers.
- Names of the wedding party, along with a brief description of each attendant's relationship to you
- The name of the officiant.
- A thank-you note to both sets of parents and one to all the guests is a frequent addition.
For religious and nonreligious ceremonies alike, it's important to keep guests in-the-know by listing all traditions, rituals, and ethnic customs, with any explanations for anything that may be unfamiliar for them.
Making Them
Whether you choose to create a program that's bound with a wax seal or a single sheet of paper that lays flat on each guest's chair, there are two basic ways to make your wedding programs:
- You can set up an arts-and-crafts station in your home, or create them using template designs from a computer program
- Or have them crafted by a professional designer. Various companies, like Paper Source, make all the tricky design decisions for you -- you just have to put the programs together.
Personalizing the Programs
Your wedding program is an opportunity to tell guests a little more about you as a couple and to set the tone for the rest of the event. The easiest way to personalize your programs is to add special touches such as favorite poems, quotes, or photographs relating to your love story and history together.
Creative Concepts
Your wedding program can consist of almost anything that can be printed on. Booklets are becoming more and more popular, as more and more couples find they have a lot more to share with family and friends. These booklets could give a detailed background of the important people taking part in the ceremony, or it may explain some of the traditions shared, or simply directions on getting to the reception. |
