Wedding Programs by Paperlust

Wedding programs can be an often forgotten part of on-the-day stationery suite amidst all the other planning that must go on. Modern wedding ceremonies are becoming more streamlined and customised to the individual couple and a lot of older traditions are being discarded along with this modernisation. However, wedding program cards play an integral part to ensuring a good flow of events on the day when it comes to timing, allowing your guests to understand what’s to come and making a statement about what you want the day to represent.

The design of a wedding program depends on the amount of information that’s to be contained within. For those having small weddings or only conducting a civil service ahead of time, wedding programs may just be small cards on the day listing the sequence of meals, speeches and dancing. For those having longer ceremonies with cultural or faith-based activities, they may need to be multi-page booklets. Nearly all wedding stationery designs feature a wedding program as well so if you want a cohesive vision from your wedding invitation to your on-the-day stationery, that should be easily achieved. However, since wedding invitations are only appreciated at the time of receiving them, when it comes to the actual wedding day, you can veer away from the design you chose for your invitations and it’s unlikely that any of your guests will know. Wedding programs may be where you want to incorporate the religious iconography of the venue or the building shape into the design.

You can see the range of wedding programs from Paperlust here: https://paperlust.co/wedding-programs/

The most fundamental purpose a wedding program serves is allowing all guests to understand the sequence of events on the day. The time between the ceremony and the reception can often be a little confusing if not expressly planned. A lot of people will switch locations between the ceremony and reception so clear instructions are necessary. This is also usually the time for couples to have away from their guests to take their wedding photos with their bridal party. It becomes especially important to have the timing of when everyone is to congregate again for the reception and celebration available to all the guests. This can be done by distributing a simple wedding program with a timeline of the events of the day at the ceremony. If your wedding doesn’t have an excessive amount of speeches or readings, these cards don’t need to be exceptionally detailed either. For those who don’t want to print lots of small cards, an option could be to print the timeline of the wedding on a larger sign to display at the venue. This could be similar in size to a Welcome Sign and would ensure that information is visible at all times.

For more traditional and religious weddings, there is usually a lot more spectacle and interludes during the wedding ceremony. This is where a single wedding program card may not be sufficient and a wedding program booklet may be needed. For example, a lot of traditional Indian weddings involve multiple ceremonies across different days and would be performed in languages other than English. If portions of the guest list are unfamiliar to those practices, it can be helpful to have the necessary background information or translations printed in the wedding program. For any multicultural weddings, having translations or explanations could be a wonderful way to share traditions between different backgrounds.

A lot of people still like to get married in churches, and even if they aren’t practising Christians, they often adopt a few of the readings and prayers that accompany church weddings. Generally the more observant the couple, the more readings and prayers they would include. Catholic weddings may involve extensive hymns and homilies as well, and wedding programs become necessary to print the text of all these readings, especially if you’re hoping the audience sings along. If a lot of the guests are familiar with rites like Catholic wedding Mass, it also falls to the program to indicate what the assembly is to do during certain prayers such as standing, sitting or kneeling. Catholic wedding programs are usually exceptionally detailed, almost like scripts, indicating which sections are sung, spoken or when musical cues are to start. Therefore the designs are usually quite simple to allow for all the information to be conveyed, and the cover design may heavily feature the church in which the wedding takes place.

Wedding programs can also be used to include personal details such as favourite passages about love or marriage between the couple. For those who’s nerves on the day don’t allow for extended periods of public speaking, printing a special poem in the wedding program as opposed to reading it out loud is a nice way for all your guests to share in that moment. Wedding programs can also be appropriate places for references to family members who’ve passed away and for example, can indicate a moment in the ceremony where a candle is lit in memoriam.

For weddings involving large families and bridal parties, wedding programs also allow for all the members of the bridal party to be listed. In many cultures, it’s customary for the parents of the couple to invite all extended family members and also, reciprocate an invitation towards anyone who’s ever invited them to a wedding too. In these scenarios, it's unlikely that all wedding guests would be familiar with the bridal party and their relationships to the couple. Some people have even commissioned illustrations of everyone in their bridal party along with their name and title to distribute amongst their guests, however, a simple typed list of names on the wedding program would be sufficient too.

Given the amount of information, wedding programs contain, they are one of the more functional pieces of wedding stationery. However, this is no reason for them not to get the design attention that the rest of your stationery receives. Wedding programs are often kept by guests as sentimental keepsakes of the day and their creation should be reflective of the future meaning they’ll hold.