Designing Wedding Invitations: Canva For Beginners

Designing your own wedding invitations is a great way to save money and add a personal touch to your special day. With Canva, you can create beautiful, elegant, and unique wedding invitations that are reflective of your celebration of love. In just a few simple steps, you can design and order high-quality prints that are customizable, from the paper quality to the finish.

Pick your shape and dimensions

Designing your own wedding invitation starts with choosing the right layout and dimensions. The traditional shape for wedding invitations is rectangular, with dimensions of 4.5 inches by 6.25 inches. This is a good option if you want to give your wedding invites a classic feel and keep printing costs down.

However, you don't have to stick to tradition. Other popular wedding invitation shapes and sizes include horizontal rectangles, scalloped designs, squares, and slim, vertical or horizontal rectangles. The size of your invitation will also depend on the country you're mailing it from and to, as each country has its own minimum and maximum size requirements for standard or first-class mail.

If you're looking for a more rustic or eco-friendly feel, you could opt for a simple invite printed on recycled brown paper. For a modern twist, a square invitation is a great choice, and for something more playful, you could choose a unique shape that reflects the theme of your wedding.

No matter what size and shape you choose, working with a template is the easiest way to get started. You can then personalize your invitation by including a photo of you and your partner, and customizing the colours, fonts, and imagery to match your wedding theme.

Consider your location

When designing your wedding invitations, it's important to consider the location of your wedding. The location of your wedding can help guide the overall theme and design of your invites. For example, if you're getting married in a church, you might want to go for a more traditional and romantic look. On the other hand, if you're having a rustic or farm wedding, a more natural and rustic design might be more appropriate.

If you're getting married in a prestigious location with opulent ballrooms and manicured gardens, your invitation should reflect the sophistication of the venue. Consider using gold embossing or a classic monogram to echo the grandeur of the location. Alternatively, if you're having a beach or destination wedding, you might want to invoke a tropical feel with your invites. You can still keep it elegant and refined, but also laid-back and relaxing.

If your wedding location is unique, like Cairo, Egypt, you can incorporate this into your invitation design with illustrations. This will give your invites a unique and eye-catching look. By considering the location of your wedding, you can create invitations that truly set the scene for your big day.

Canva offers hundreds of editable designs suitable for any wedding theme, so you can find the perfect invitation to match your location. You can also add your own images, fonts, and colours to make your invitations truly unique.

Choose romantic fonts

When designing wedding invitations on Canva, choosing a romantic font is essential to set the right tone for your special day. Here are some tips to help you select the perfect font for your invitations:

Understand Font Styles

Firstly, it's helpful to understand the different types of font styles. Script fonts, for example, have a formal and traditional feel with flourishes and swooshes that add an ornate touch. Calligraphy fonts can vary from modern calligraphy, which looks hand-drawn, to traditional calligraphy that resembles script-style fonts. Serif fonts are excellent for print designs as the extra "feet" improve legibility and create a visual bridge between letters. There are two types of serif fonts: traditional, which feels like it belongs in old history books, and modern, which borrows from current design trends while remaining grounded in tradition. Sans-serif fonts, on the other hand, are the cleanest and most legible, making them ideal for digital invitations. They have a modern elegance and can be paired with different thicknesses to create contrast.

Consider Your Wedding Theme

The font you choose should complement your wedding theme. If you're going for a rustic or natural theme, a romantic and elegant font like cursive or calligraphy might be a better fit. If you're having a whimsical event, a whimsical font like Carried Away (Ballerina Script) could be perfect. For a bold and loud wedding, a font like Lemon Milk will set the right tone. If your wedding is filled with chalkboards, bunting, and fairy lights, consider a font like Roasting, which resembles beautifully written chalk on a blackboard.

Legibility is Key

While you want a font that reflects your style, it's crucial to ensure it's legible. Some highly scripted or thin fonts may look appealing but can be challenging to read. If you have essential information to convey, consider using a legible font for the body text and a stylish accent font for names or headings. This way, you can maintain readability while adding a creative touch.

Pairing Fonts

Combining two fonts can create a beautiful contrast and enhance the overall design. A classic pairing is a cursive font with a sans-serif font. For example, Great Vibes, a highly readable cursive font, pairs well with Montserrat, a sans-serif font with uniform, straight lines. Another elegant combination is Playfair Display, a classic serif font, paired with Montserrat Light, which adds a subtle linear touch without overpowering the main font. If you want to highlight the couple's names, consider using an accent font that stands out, such as a fun and playful calligraphy-style font.

Examples of Romantic Fonts

Some examples of romantic fonts that you can use for your wedding invitations include:

• Libre Baskerville (used in the Grey Textured Wedding Invite template on Canva)
• Adelio Darmanto (a delicate calligraphic script font with adorable details)
• Alex Brush (a sophisticated serif typeface with a classy and playful feel)
• Yaquote Script (a stylish and understated scripted font with creative flourishes)
• Exmouth (a readable and slanted scripted font for a polished, high-end look)

Remember, the right font choice will depend on your unique style and wedding theme. Take the time to browse through the various font options on Canva and experiment with different combinations to find the perfect romantic fonts for your wedding invitations.

Think about your imagery

Canva gives you access to over 1 million premium images, graphics and illustrations. Many of these images are free, while the rest are priced at just $1 each. There are hundreds of beautiful options to choose from that will suit the theme and feel of your wedding day. You can also upload your own images for free and use them as many times as you like.

Using a photo of you and your partner on your wedding invite is a great way to showcase your love to your friends and family. It can also help to give your invites a more personal feel and makes a great keepsake for your loved ones.

If you want to add a pop of colour to your invites, consider using Canva's library of premium images, icons, illustrations and graphics. You can also experiment with different colour combinations such as pink and purple, blue and white, or gold with anything! Green is also a very popular choice for wedding invitations, especially for outdoor ceremonies. It has a calming and energising feel and can look luxurious when paired with colours like rust or gold.

Canva also has a variety of wedding invitation and save-the-date templates for different themes, including summer weddings at the beach and cosy winter celebrations.

Inject some personality into your design

Designing your wedding invitations on Canva is a great way to keep costs down and add a personal touch. To inject some personality into your design, consider the following:

Think about what is most important to you as a couple

What do you, as a couple, truly value in life? Do you have any shared hobbies or interests? Is there a story behind how you met? For example, if you share a love for science, Canva's Yellow and Green Flasks Save The Date template is a perfect fit. The icons can also be swapped out for other images that reflect your interests.

Design with your guests in mind

Your wedding invitations are not only a reflection of your personalities and love story but also a gift to your guests. Consider adding a beautiful art print on the back of your invitation. This could be a watercolour painting of your wedding location or a floral illustration featuring one of the flowers in your wedding bouquet. You could also add a custom wedding map to your information/accommodations card, especially if you're having a destination wedding.

Blend personality with classic details

If you're worried about the reactions of parents and grandparents to bold colours and illustrations, find a happy compromise. Blend a traditional invitation with fun and personality-filled information cards. For example, you could include a custom wedding crest—a symbol of your relationship that contains various icons in a beautiful, artistic way.

Use a colour palette you actually like

Choose colours that you both love and that reflect your personalities. These colours will be surrounding you during wedding planning and your wedding weekend, and for decades to come through photos and artwork. Don't be afraid to use unique colours or soften them with complementary or neutral shades.

Consider details that will last beyond the wedding

Investing in wedding artwork doesn't have to be silly—if you infuse your personality into the design, you can easily transition these pieces into your home decor as newlyweds. For example, you could have custom pillows created featuring your wedding crest or floral pattern, or art prints featuring your wedding map or venue illustrations.

Frequently asked questions