Welcome, precious little child,
So fresh from God above,
Baptised today in Jesus’ name,
Held in His arms of love.
May angels guide your tiny feet
And bring you smiles to wear,
And may our Heavenly Father
Always keep you in His care.

Ask your family and friends to celebrate your child’s Baptism or Christening with a new invitation from our Baptism collection. Our newest designs are printed on high-quality shimmering card stock which lets your guests know what an important event they are invited to attend. Each of the new IB Designs baptism invitations have a coordinating design on the back that matches the front design on the card. Choose your invitation color, (gold, silver, brown, pink or blue) with a coordinating damask, swirl or cross design in rectangle or square shape.

Below is a sample of one of our newest Baptism invitations, Gold Damask Baptism Invitation by IB Designs. This flat invitation is printed on white shimmer card stock and features a gold and white shimmer outer border with a gold scalloped cross at the top center. This formal baptism invitation is available as shown below as well as in a silver and white shimmer version.

Check out the above Baptism invitation and many more styles at InvitationBox.com. We have a plethora of designs for boy and girl Baptisms, in a variety of designs for formal or casual religious events. These invitations are great for Baptisms, Christenings or Holy Communions.

Often when a couple decides to wed they’ll be buying a house or renting an apartment together, which may be rather empty when they’re first starting out as a couple. An around the house bridal shower is perfect for the couple-to-be. This way your guests can help fill up the new household and provide the bride and groom with items they need for their new home together. When planning an around the house bridal shower, each guest will be assigned a room to purchase a gift for. If you know the bride has registred for a plethora of kitchen and living room items, you may want to give more guests those assignments, and only give a few guests rooms like the bathroom, shed or bedroom.

Our around he house invitations are perfect for letting the guests know the theme of your shower. Choose a modern invitation with bright colors and furtniture silhouettes that showcase the different rooms the bride and groom will need gifts for. Be sure to inform your guests that this is an around the house shower so that they are prepared. On the actual invitation, leave a blank space for the room to be handwritten in, “Your room is________________________”.

Not sure what gift to purchase for your room assignment? Here are a few helpful ideas for your gift-giving shower:

Kitchen: Cooking utensils, pots and pans, serving trays, waffle iron, mixer, dish towels, coasters, fun kitchen gadgets, bakeware, silverware, cloth napkins and linens

Living Room: Blankets, pillows, picture frames, holiday decorations, paintings

Bathroom/Bedroom: Linens, lingerie, bath products, monogrammed towels

Shed/Garage: Tools, car parts, shovels, rakes, lawn mower, tool box

View our favorite around the house bridal shower invitations at InvitationBox.com!

Your bundle of joy has finally arrived! Time to let family and friends know the good news of an extra family member. When creating a birth announcement most families will choose a gender-specific birth announcement, i.e. pink, purple and yellow for girls or blue, navy or green for boys. Choose a color combination or design that you feel best describes your feeling about your newborn or their newfound personality from our baby boy birth announcement collection, baby girl birth announcement collection or multiples birth announcement collection. You can even choose a design or theme that matches their nursery from bumblebees, princesses, bunnies and flowers to cars, trucks, sailboats or monograms.

When writing your birth announcement, you’ll want to include some important pieces of information about your new baby. Be sure to include your baby’s name, date of birth, weight, length and parents names. You can also elect to include the time your baby was born, location of the birth and/or the baby’s new siblings names. There is no requirement on what information you must have or include on your birth announcement, as long as you are comfortable with it. If you have just delivered a premie and do not want to list weight or length information, that is perfectly acceptable. Or, if you have just adopted and do not know this information, that’s okay too.

Below are some of our newest and most popular birth announcements featuring contemporary styles for your newborn…

Want to share a photograph of your new arrival with family and friends? We also have digital photograph birth announcements that are perfect for creating memories and keepsakes.

Imagine sending out 150 wedding invitations on Monday, only to realize on Wednesday that nobody has received them. By the weekend you have a mailbox overflowing with invitations to your wedding that should have been sent to your guests with large gaudy return to sender – insufficient postage stamps on them. Believe it or not, this actually happens from time to time when we forget to put enough postage on our outgoing invitations.

A good rule of thumb is to remember that a normal sized invitation is your standard .44 cents and weighs up to an ounce. If the package is slightly bulky or weight just over an ounce, you’ll want to add .20 cents extra or .20 cents for each ounce over 1 that you have. If you have a large envelope, remember the invitation will start at .80 cents with .20 cents extra for each stamp. A good rule of thumb is that if you are at all unsure about the amount of postage needed for your ensemble you should take a ready-to-mail envelope to the post office and have it weighed. It’s better to prepare ahead of time then have a situation like noted above.

When creating your wedding ensemble, be sure to place regular postage on your reply card envelopes. Many new brides who have not attended weddings prior may be unaware of this small task. We all know that in this day in age most guests hate to RSVP. You’ve already made it easy for them by supplying a fill-in reply card, but go the extra step by adding postage to the envelope. This way your guest can fill out the RSVP and mail it with ease.

Additional questions about postage? Never hesitate to check with your invitation company about postage, consult usps.com or stop by your local post office to confirm rates/prices.

It never fails that bounce house parties tend to be the winner when it comes to kids birthday party themes and invitation choices. Bounce house parties are a great way to keep the kids active, excited and having fun during the whole birthday event. They are great for girl or boy parties and parents, family, friends and siblings can join in on the fun too! Most bounce houses will accommodate a bunch of kids at a time and grown-ups can jump after the kids are done.

In the past few weeks we have introduced several new bounce house themed invitations on our website, from IB Designs and Paper so Pretty. These designs are perfect for those who desire a gender neutral birthday invitation with boys & girls jumping amongst plastic balls together and gender neutral colors like green and yellow for parties where both genders of kids are attending. If you do want more gender specific, we have pastel bounce houses for girls and more primary bounce house colors for boys only. Each bounce house themed invitation is in cartoon form and showcases vibrant colors that resemble the bounce house you’ll be attending or renting for your child’s party. Fill in your child’s name, party details and a fun bounce-house phrase like “Bounce this way, it’s my 4th Birthday” and you’ll be all set!

Below are some of our newest bounce house invitation designs…

Remember when inviting your guests to your event to ask them to bring socks and proper active attire. You may even want to have extra socks on hand in case someone forgets. This way everyone can join in on the bouncing fun!

When writing a wedding invitation, the use of the word “and” signifies union or marriage. We often see the misuse of the word “and” in the beginning of a wedding invitation when you are indicating who is hosting a wedding. When writing a wedding invitation, the first few lines should give a good indication of who is hosting the wedding, be it the bride & groom, bride’s partents, groom’s parents or both. If you have a divorced couple or two different couples hosting the event, they should not be adjoined by the word “and”, as obviously the bride and groom’s parents are not to be wed. They should be listed one on top of the other, bride or women first.

Below are some examples of how to properly word the beginning of your wedding invitation…

Bride’s Parents Hosting the Wedding

Sarah and William Smith
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Kalen Marie
to
Mr. James Thomas Horton

Bride’s Divorced Parents Hosting Wedding

Ms. Sarah Smith
Mr. William Smith
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Kalen Marie
to
Mr. James Thomas Horton

Bride & Groom’s Parents Hosting Wedding

Sarah and William Smith
Catelyn and Thomas Smith
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their children
Kalen Marie
and
James Thomas

Bride & Groom Hosting Wedding

Kalen Marie Smith
and
James Thomas Horton
request the honor of your presence
at their marriage

OR

You are cordially invited
to attend the marriage of
Kalen Marie Smith
to
James Thomas Horton

Need more help writing your wedding invitation? Be sure to check out our helpful etiquette & advice section of information at InvitationBox!

As summer heats up we’re all reminded that fall will soon be cooling us down and planning a fall wedding, be it this year or next, is right around the corner. The fall wedding season is my absolute favorite with it’s deep, dark, rich hues and accents that create a montage of eye-appealing images. Fall has blessed us with a multitude of color combinations to use for a fall wedding including ivory, brown, orange, yellow and green to name a few. You can even use different shades of the color as fall gives you so many options to work with.

Who says you need to match your wedding invitation to your wedding themes and colors? In the compilation below I have started with a vintage invitation from one of our newest vendors, The Green Kangaroo. I started with their Josie Brown and Harvest on Champagne Wedding Invitation and expanded this ivory, orange and brown hued invitation into a full-on fall wedding theme.

I chose an antique champagne lace and beaded gown for the bride’s dress that coordinated with the champagne shimmer card stock of the invitation. The orange and brown vintage scrolls on the invitation led into the bouquet, “fall in love” leafy soap wedding favors and the reception decor. I chose a redish-orange bridesmaid dress to really accentuate the fall colors used in the wedding ensemble thus causing the bride’s dress to truly stand out from the rest.

Feeling inspired or need some inspiration of your own? Feel free to send us your ideas or ‘starting points’ and we’ll be happy to help you create a wedding montage for your big day. Sometimes the best thing to do when planning a wedding is to cut out pictures of different items you like and collage them together to see how they fit/coordinate. Inspire yourself to create your dream wedding, no matter what season it is you’re planning it for.

A plethora of wedding stationery etiquette inquiries have been coming in lately, along with some typical mistakes on wedding stationery that we all make. I thought I’d share a little marriage stationery advice with our readers…

When writing your new married name, the bride’s name should always be written before the groom’s. For example, John Smith who is now married to Katie Smith should be written as “Katie and John Smith”. A good rule to remember is that a man should never be separated from his last name…thus Katie’s name would always be written first to prevent this.

Even without the groom’s last name, it should always be “Katie and John”. The rule behind this one is that the bride is “given away” to the groom, thus her name should be written first.

When creating a married monogram, which is a three-letter monogram with a couple’s initials entertwined, keep in mind that you are creating just that, a married monogram. Engaged couples to be married should not write their initials together until they have been wed. We see this on a lot of wedding invitations, however it does go against traditional etiquette.

A married couple is welcome to use a married monogram. The monogram should consist of three letters, with the initial in the center being the largest. The left initial should be the first letter of the wife’s name and the right initial should be the first letter of the husband’s name. The center of the monogram should be the married couple’s last name initial.

It’s important to follow these traditional etiquette rules to convey a clear representation of a couple or couple-to-be. If you have more stationery etiquette questions, feel free to ask! It’s always fun to play ‘stump the blogger’!!

I will never forget the over the hill party my father-in-law hosted for my mother-in-law when she turned 50. We had the surprise party at a favorite Italian restaurant of our family’s and hid everyone in a banquet room decorated with black balloons. When she came into the room she burst into tears realizing the party was for her and not our other relatives. My father-in-law made her sit in a wheelchair at the table and periodically throughout the night we handed her gag gifts and candy pills for aches and pains from going over the hill. It was a fun night of roasting and toasting her 50th birthday.

When hosting your parent, husband, wife, co-worker or friend’s over the hill party, be sure to spread the word with a great invitation that gets everyone into the fun ‘over the hill’ spirit. You can choose an invitation that embraces old age or one that celebrates that many years younger and wiser! Below are a few our our favorite over the hill party invitations shown with their fun coordinating backs:

Need some over the hill gag-gifts? Think menus or a book with extremely large writing, coffin goody bags, tired pills, T-shirts with funny old-timer sayings, black cupcakes, memory mints for senior moments…the list goes on and on! Have fun as you celebrate your loved one getting older. Remind them that they’re not just older, they’re better!

My best friend turns 21 in a matter of weeks and her boyfriend and I have been wracking our brains trying to come up with a fun party idea to help her celebrate this fun milestone in her life. She only turns 21 once in her life and we want to make it a party she’ll remember!

When planning your best friend, sister or co-worker’s 21st birthday one thing comes to mind: Cocktails! She’ll now be able to go out to the bar with her friends and starting the night using her new “21″ ID is a great kick-off to the night. Choose a 21st birthday party invitation that best showcases her party style and how you’d like the night to go, whether you’re going out for dinner or drinks, having a house party or just spending the day at a spa relaxing.

Our 21st Birthday party invitations feature a variety of styles and designs including “21st birthday” milestone wording, vibrant colors, cocktails, party characters, cakes, animal print themes and sassy party scenes. Choose an invitation that best matches the birthday girl’s personality and party style. Remember to remind guests if the party is a surprise.

Want to make her party even more fun? Create a scavenger hunt and split the party group into two teams to prowl the town. Create her own signature drink of her favorite flavors just for her special day. You can even make special shirts or a crown for her to wear so everyone knows that she is the birthday girl who has just turned 21!