Weddingbee PRO

Wedding programs, by nature of their contents, are a last minute item. Your ceremony is your wedding. Most people {myself completely included} tend to focus on the reception as the wedding, but the reason you have a reception is to celebrate your ceremony where you committed your lives to each other in front of family and friends. Therefore it is understandable that you are working on the details of your ceremony until the last minute possible because it is so important. By the time you are done planning your ceremony you may be thinking, program? Do I really need a program? In a short word, yes.

You want your guests to feel welcomed and involved with your wedding. The more involved they feel, the better experience they will have. Wedding programs allow your guests to follow the ceremony, understand what is happening and why, and it is a keepsake of the day. Programs come in all shapes and sizes and there is no set format on what your program should look like. It should work for you and your ceremony and reflect you as a couple.

The key “ingredients” for a program include: your full names, wedding date, city, state, and location of the ceremony, the order of the wedding ceremony including musical selections, the composers and performers, the readings, the source or author, and the readers, wedding party names and their relation to you, your officiant’s name, a thank you note to your parents and guests, and a brief explanation of traditions, rituals, and ethnic customs for both religious and secular ceremonies. You may also wish to honor those who have passed or could not join you by including a memorial.

Below are a few of my favorite programs I have designed along with a description of why the format was chosen for that particular ceremony.

Shelley & Willie needed a booklet-style program for their wedding ceremony, which was an elegant affair at the Cosmos Club. The program continued the theme of their invitations and included all of the key ceremony information listed above. They also included an explanation of their wedding ceremony, as it was a specific kind, and they included why various parts of the ceremony were important. The cover of the program was gocco screen printed and the interior pages were digitally printed.

Jess & Jay were married in July in Maine. Knowing the church where their ceremony was taking place had no air conditioning, we knew a fan was the perfect program. We continued the theme of their wedding invitations using the same design elements, typefaces, and colors. As it was a religious ceremony, the contents included the readings and readers, along with all the music selections on one side. On the other side the wedding party and a note to the guests was included. The fans were digitally printed and hand-assembled.

Gisela & Richard had an art-deco inspired wedding Miami. Gisela wanted to keep the program small {4.5 x 6.26″} but wanted to fit a lot of information so we used every inch of available space. The front featured the same peonies from her invitation. The inside had the ceremony and wedding party information on the left side and their three readings on the right side so guests could follow along. The back included a note to guests and a memorial section. There were no additional pages so the ribbon served a more decorative rather than functional purpose, unlike the first program where the ribbon actually held the interior pages in. This entire program was gocco screen printed.

Larissa & Brennan had a religious ceremony similar to Jess & Jay’s. We decided to go with a simple folded card {5 x 7″}, also continuing the theme of their wedding invitations. The inside pages held the ceremony information on the left side and the wedding party information along with their note to guests on the right side. This entire program was also gocco screen printed.

Going back to my opening sentence - wedding programs are a last minute item. These four programs were designed, printed, assembled, and delivered all under two weeks before the big day. That first one arrived the day before the ceremony {which is actually cutting it just a bit too close for my comfort!}. With that being said, beautiful & practical programs are completely possible, even if you think you do not have enough time!