The 7-Piece Wedding Reception Set That Runs the Whole Room

The invitation is the only piece on this list a guest holds before the day, and it does more work than its size suggests. It fixes the date, it tells people how formal to dress without saying so, and it hands you the typeface, the monogram and the paper color that the other six pieces then have to match. Print it first, print it alone, and treat every decision in it as a rule you are setting for the rest of the set.

Weight is what carries formality. A heavier card with plain lettering reads more formal in the hand than a thin card covered in ornament, every time. Get the wording and the envelope right before the file goes anywhere near a press: our guide on how to address wedding invitations covers the titles and the inner envelope, how to design wedding invitations covers the layout, and the best wedding fonts piece is where you choose the two typefaces you will now use seven times.

Order more than your household count. A short reprint costs more per piece than the extras would have, and you will want spares for the photographer, the parents and the box you keep.

A menu is read in low light by someone who is already sitting down, holding a drink and half in conversation. That is the whole design brief. Name the dish plainly on its own line, keep the type large enough to read by candlelight, and put the dietary marks where a server can point at them instead of explaining them twice a table.

The menu is also the piece guests photograph, because it is the only printed thing in front of them at eye level. That makes it the best place to repeat the monogram at a size that survives a phone crop. If your ceremony needs an order of service too, build both from the same grid: the wedding program guide and the program wording guide cover the naming and the sequence, and the same rules apply here.

One timing rule saves most of the reprints we see. Do not print menus until the caterer has confirmed the final dishes and you have the confirmed count. A late substitution on one course is the classic reason a whole run gets thrown out.

Starting at $10.98, coasters are the least expensive line here and the one that touches the most hands. Every glass poured at the bar sits on one, guests pocket them without being invited to, and the ones left on the tables end up in the photos of the room at the end of the night.

A coaster is read in about half a second by someone holding a drink, so it gets exactly one idea: the monogram, or the two first names, or the date. Hairline rules and small caption type are wasted at that size and in that light. Print the monogram on one face and the date on the other, and you have a keepsake that costs less per guest than the napkin under it.

Order past your headcount, generously. Coasters are the single piece guests take home on purpose, and running out at the bar at nine o'clock is the one shortage nobody plans for.

Die-cut means the sticker is cut to the outline of your artwork, so a monogram arrives as a monogram and not as a monogram sitting inside a rectangle. From $93.37, one order of them quietly finishes half a dozen jobs: sealing the favor bags, labeling the water bottles and the welcome boxes, closing a rolled menu, marking the card box, and going home on the back of a phone.

Keep the cut line around a solid shape. Thin serifs, trailing script tails and narrow points are fragile once they are cut free, and they peel from the edge in a bag. A monogram inside a circle, an oval or a soft badge shape survives handling and still reads across a room. If you are pairing them with hotel bags, the wedding welcome bag set covers what goes inside, and stickers printing lists the other shapes and finishes we cut.

Order in one size, not three. A single sticker that fits a bag fold, a bottle and a box lid is more useful on the morning of than three sizes nobody has time to sort.