Looking for a way to beat the heat?  It’s a scorching 104 degrees in Cary, North Carolina today, and our weather reports tell us tomorrow is going to be even hotter – with a heat index of 115 degrees!  (Great time to live down south, right)??  I don’t know about you, but the only thing I am planning on doing this weekend is wading in the pool or sitting in the cool air conditioning – and drinking plenty of water, of course!

Summer parties are extremely fun, however they can also be hard to plan due to the hot summer weather we’ve had over the past few years.  Pool parties were always fun as a kid, so why not host one for your adult friends this summer?  It’s a great way to get the gang together, keep cool and create new memories and meet new friends.

Our adult pool party invitations will make a splash at your next event with fun, chic, trendy and posh pool party invites that will coordinate with your summer event no matter what the reason for your celebration…be it a corporate summer party, an adult birthday party, a rehearsal dinner after party, a family reunion or simply a gathering with your family members and friends.

For those hosting an upscale pool party, we have summer lounge pool party invitations which feature chic pool scenes with infinity pools, girls drinking cocktails poolside, serene patio scenes, pool chaise spa scenes and beach themes.  If kicking back and having fun is the main theme of your event, we also have casual pool party invitations with beach balls, sandcastles in the sand, night swimming scenes, starfish, fruity tropical cocktails, luau couples, pool toys, flip flops, tropical flowers and sexy bikinis!

Remember to ask your guests to bring plenty of sunscreen, their own towels and a change of clothes if you’re going to host an all-day or all-night event.  Include everyone by asking guests to bring over their favorite poolside or summer dish to share!  You’ll want to mail your pool party invitations about 2-3 weeks in advance of your event, or longer, so that everyone can attend, and so that you can plan accordingly for your event.

Make a huge splash at your next event and keep cool with one of these adult pool party invitations!

Maybe you’re just jotting down a note during a meeting, writing a “while you were out” message to a co-worker or boss or simply needing a place to jot down a name or phone number while on the phone with a client – whatever the reason, even with technology as amazing as it is, it always seems that we need to find a scrap piece of paper whether we’re at work, at home or on-the go.

For today’s modern career professional, we have an amazing collection of stationery wardrobes which work great for your desk at your office or as a compliment to your home office or kitchen counter.  The typical Target style stationery is great, but it’s so generic – we love these stationery wardrobes as they’re personal, professional and stylized – just like you.  Our most popular stationery wardrobes are manufactured by Embossed Graphics, which offer a complete line of wardrobes, thank you notes and stationery for daily use and correspondence…I even have one on my desk here at InvitationBox!

The best part about these wardrobes is that you’re able to personalize each one with your monogram, name, contact information, email address, phone number or a company slogan.  You can choose your ink color and your font style on some of the pads, too!  Many of the wardrobe sets include a classy holder which keeps all of your notepads together in a convenient location for your office.  We also have stationery wardrobes that include different sized and designed note cards, thank you notes and calling cards, which is great for personal AND office use.

Below you’ll find some of our favorite and best-selling personalized stationery wardrobes, be it notepads, thank you notes or personalized calling cards.  Remember that we offer these items with flat printing, thermography and embossing, all at a convenient price ranging from $22.95 to $55.95.  Go the extra mile and be professional and personalized at home and the office with one of our classy, chic and fun collection of personalized stationery wardrobes!

Who says bounce houses are only for kids?  A customer of ours placed an order today for an adult bounce house party, and we all were so jealous of this customer and the amazing party she had planned for her husband’s 30th.  Remember how fun it was to be a kid, carefree and ready to bounce and play?  Do you ever get jealous when your kids get to go to these types of parties?  I know I do!

One of the newest trends in adult birthday parties is an adult bounce house party.  These  special bounce houses are made specifically to withstand adult weight, and some rental agencies will allow you to rent a bounce house for a day, and others have a facility you can actually go to, to participate.  Just remember, you might want to plan a day of rest afterwards – when was the last time your adult body bounced around a padded room for hours on end?  We expect sore muscles will follow your fun party!

When planning your party, be sure to have plenty of snacks and drinks on-hand for your guests so that nobody runs out of fuel while jumping, (just keep the booze to a minimum, because nobody want to clean up a pukey mess inside the bounce house)!  Be sure to remind your guests to wear appropriate exercise/jumping clothing and to bring their own socks, which is typically required.  You will also need a large space available if you are renting your own bounce house.  Be sure to also have a camera handy!

Set the scene for your adult bounce house party with a bounce house invitation to entice your guest, (trust me, everyone will likely attend this one)!  We offer guy and girl bounce house party invitations featuring pastel bounce houses for women and primary colored bounce houses for men.  Choose from a variety of bounce house invitation styles, whether it’s a bounce house water slide or a giant ball pit!  Remember that we also offer coordinating stationery, thank you notes and stickers in case you want to create your own bounce house ensemble for your event.

Check out some of our favorite bounce house invitations below and get creative for your next event.  Make it a party that EVERYONE will want to attend!

When hosting a wedding or a formal event with a sit-down dinner, it can be difficult to find out what each guest would like to eat, if you are offering them multiple dinner options, especially when some guests have specific dietary restrictions.

One of the most popular ways that brides are collecting these preferences from guests, is to list entree choices on their reply cards, to which a guest will check off which entree they would prefer when responding to the event.  Meal choices can be descriptive if you have a larger reply card available, or be very simple by listing simply “___beef / ___chicken / ___vegetarian”.  Listing a shorter description or a general description can also be helpful if you don’t know exactly which beef or chicken dish you’ll be serving yet…and this way guests won’t be expecting filet mignon, and receiving a NY Strip.

Once you have collected all of your reply cards, you’ll have a good idea of how much of each dish your caterers will need to prepare.  Then becomes the issue of how to inform your servers of which guest has selected which entree option.  The most traditional way to do this is to provide your caterer with a list of assigned seating along with each guest’s meal choices.  However, if you feel this may become a hassle for your servers, creating your own “secretly coded” place cards is a great idea.  A great idea is to color-code your place cards, to which you can coordinate with your meal choices and wedding/event colors.  For example, if your wedding has the colors black and aqua, with white linens, you can have back place cards for guests that chose beef, aqua place cards for guests who chose chicken and white place cards for those who selected seafood or vegetarian.  Or, create a special motif on each place card which shows the server which entree is for which guest.  There’s lots of creative ways to pull everything off smoothly, without your guests having any idea how you did it!

One of my favorite place cards is the one shown in the top left corner, by Checkerboard.  This fun place card is actually in the shape of a cut-out orange hibiscus flower, which features a slit in the bottom so that you can hang the place card from each guest’s drink!  Perfect for a tropical event, you can hand write each guest’s name on the place card, and you can always add a motif or a marking to the back so that your servers know which meal to serve each guest.  This fun place card is perfect for a destination wedding.

Create organization and a calm bride and make everything go smoothly at your reception or corporate event with one of our response cards or fun place cards.  Remember, nothing is pre-printed on our cards, thus you can create your card exactly as you wish!

One of the most common comments I hear from customers is that the envelope size of their invitations surprises them when they receive their orders.  Most customers feel their invitations are too big, although today I heard a customer say that she felt that a 5 x 7 inch invitation would be too small.  Remember that for each invitation sold on InvitationBox.com, we clearly list the size of each invitation in the product details, so that you can make an educated decision based on what works best for you.

Is there an appropriate size for an invitation?  Is one size too small, and one size too large for a specific event?

The short answer?  No, there’s no right or wrong when it comes to invitation size, however there is appropriate and inappropriate in all cases.  When you’re thinking about save the date cards, be it for a wedding, Bat Mitzvah, etc., we typically suggest a small card, around 4.25 x 5.5 inches.  You can save the larger sized card for your wedding invitations.  If you think about it, the more information you have for an event, likely the more formal your event will be, and thus the larger of an invitation will be needed.  Your save the date cards should only preview a few small details about your event, thus the size of your save the date card should be fairly minimal, though not so small that it gets lost in the mail.

A typical bridal shower invitation or party invitation ranges from about a 5 x 7 inch card to a 6 x 9 inch card.  Anything larger than that can be considered unnecessary, however it honestly comes down to a matter of opinion.  You also don’t want the card being so small that you can’t read the details about the party on the invitation.  If it’s your wedding invitation, or an invitation for a special event, large or even bulky invitations are often appropriate, whether you are using a square invitation, a pocket or buckle style invitation, or simply a large invitation to hold all of your event details.

Remember that when using bulky, odd-shaped or invitation ensembles with multiple pieces, your invitation will likely need additional postage.  There are a few different factors that go into making an invitation have extra postage, from the weight of the item to the size, shape and even the humidity in the air!  If you are ever unsure as to what the proper postage on an invitation should be, check with your local post office before mailing 100 invitations and having them all returned for insufficient postage – or worse, your guest has to pay the post man 35 cents to receive your invitation!  We do not suggest pre-buying the postage for your invitations if you feel it may be over one ounce, or oddly shaped.  Nobody wants to have to go out and buy more postage, or see an envelope with five different stamps on it, for a special, wedding or corporate event.

Remember to contact our experts if you’re ever unsure and we can give you a bit of guidance about selecting the right size invitation for you, with the proper postage!

Here at InvitationBox, we mostly focus on happy events, from birthdays to birth announcements and wedding invitations.  But sometimes life happens and we find outselves in the middle of a difficult time, or maybe even a divorce, as scary as that sounds!  This weekend, I was invited to a divorce party and I knew I just had to share this with our bloggers.

What on earth is a divorce party?!  Well, apparently it’s a party hosted by your friends to celebrate the divorcee’s newfound single freedom, which typically follows a long, drawn-out or difficult divorce, when both parties are equally happy walking in separate directions.  Perhaps you’re walking away from a bad marriage, or you both just grew apart.  Whatever the reason, you need to be surrounded by love and support, of course!  All in all, a divorce party is basically a toast to the divorcee’s new fresh start ahead, filled with best wishes from loving family and friends!

So what exactly should you expect if you’re invited to a divorce party?  If the subject of divorce is light, you might expect a wild and crazy “single” night out on the town with all of the divorcee’s best friends.  From dinner to bar hopping or a party bus, the possibilities are endless.  Some divorce parties even report that they create a black cake with a broken bride and groom on the top – (we seriously suggest you make sure the honoree has a sense of humor about their divorce, though)!   Some guests will create divorce rings for everyone to wear and bring a ring coffin for your old wedding ring.  If the mood is rather serious, you might want to do a wine tasting or intimate wine night at home, with lots of pick-me-up movies and thing to help take the divorcee’s mind off of the situation.

Set the scene for your divorce party with a divorce party invitation from our invitation collection. Some of the most popular divorce party invitations we see are our cocktail party invitations, which let your guests know they’re in for a wild and crazy ride.  Choose a cocktail invitation in the city, or a sophisticated martini invite.  If summer is the season, or the pool is where the party is held, try one of our summer cocktail invitations or one of our tropical cocktail party invitations.  We also have adult party invitations with groups of friends celebrating, bus tickets for a wild traveling theme through marriage, or themed party invitations which capture a bit of your activities for the evening.

Whatever you decide to do, be sure that everyone is on board and instead of playing up the “end of marriage” celebrate the start to a new life, a new beginning and make this night the first memory of many good memories to come!

What’s one more guest, right?!  Sometimes when planning a wedding or a large formal event we start out with a tentative number for expected guests, assuming that cousin Ed in California won’t be attending our North Carolina event, or that not everyone who is invited will be able to attend…but one way or another, it seems like our guest lists continues to grow and surprise us!

One of the most common questions we hear from brides is, “Just how do you reduce your guest list?”  It’s not easy, but it can be done.  You can do the ever-popular A and B list, where as your A-list guests decline attending your event you can then begin sending out wedding invitations to your B-list guests.  This is not something I’d advertise to family and friends, but do most brides do it?  Absolutely.

The other option you have is limiting the number of “plus one” guests you have.  If you have ten single friends, and you’re trying to cut numbers, invite your single friends only and eliminate, “and guest” from your invitation envelope wording. Who knows, your old college roommate and your childhood best friend may just hit it off.  If you’re not sure if you should cut guests, you can always invite your guests to bring a “plus one”, as it does tend to make a guest who does not know many people at your wedding feel more comfortable.

We have all heard the horror stories from brides saying that they invited 75 guests and after they did their final head count they were up to over 100 guests.  When wording your reply card, be very careful not to leave your reply card open so that your guests can bring as many guests as they’d like, unless your budget allows for it.  We always suggest leaning away from using wording like, “Number of guests____” as this means that each guest will fill in their own name and can put any number in the “Number of guests” field.  In other words, you could have two guest’s names in the M________________ line on the reply card, and their number of guests could read 4.  Does this mean your two guests are bringing 2 other guests with them, or that there will be six total attending?  It can be very confusing, thus we always suggest wording your invitation, addressed envelopes and response cards very clearly.

Do you have an etiquette question about guests and reply cards that wasn’t included above?  Send us your burning questions and our wedding experts are happy to help!  There’s always a rule or guideline in the wedding world to help!

Ready to take ‘Til death do us part…’ to the literal level?  Believe it or not, Halloween themed weddings have been an increasingly popular wedding theme for the modern fall bride.  Maybe you have a dark side, maybe you met on Halloween, or maybe you just have an odd fetish with this eerie holiday – whatever the reason, we think it’s an amazingly fun, unique and exciting wedding theme, and we’ve got the perfect Halloween wedding invitations to help you set the scene.

When you think of Halloween, you may think of the gory, iconic or scary side of the holiday…but getting married on Halloween doesn’t have to mean dressing up like the bride of Frankenstein or having a white dress covered in fake red blood, (but if that’s your style – go for it)!  Most of our Halloween brides use the beautiful and striking color palette from Halloween to decorate their event, from a black wedding dress from Vera Wang to elegant table tops with antique embroidered ivory lace and large candelabras.  The most popular Halloween wedding colors are accents of black, ivory, white and burnt orange.

The word “vintage” often comes to mind when I think of a Halloween themed wedding, too.  From large chandeliers to elegant table spreads and tree branch decor, your fall wedding can have a completely dark, elegant and vintage look to create a formal Halloween event.  Host your ceremony at twilight to create a bit of ambiance, and to highlight your unique wedding theme.  Serve up pumpkin soup or some fall food favorites, and send your guests home with a bit of candy corn or Halloween candy.

Our Halloween wedding invitations range from eerie and dark to contemporary and modern with designs of trees made of skeletons, whose roots intertwine portraying an essence of everlasting, ever-growing love.  We also have pocket Halloween invitations which are some of our most popular formal Halloween invitation designs.  Each pocket is wrapped with a satin ribbon in the choice of your wedding colors, from orange to black to white or purple.  Choose a pocket invitation that features an elegant and contrasting insert with a damask or scrolling pattern.  We also have really fun Halloween invitations which can be great for Halloween bridal shower invitations featuring witches at moon-fall, iconic patterned borders and ribbon accents.

Check out some of our most popular Halloween wedding invitations below and share your Halloween wedding ideas with us – we’re dying to hear them!

While visiting with family this weekend, we talked about our cousin’s unbelievable Quinceanera a year ago, and what an amazing party it was, from the food to the location, the dances and the dresses, of course!  Her mother told us how she loved planning the party, but how the event was so much of a production that it was almost like planning a wedding!  So many of our cultural events nowadays become such a large and involved event that they are almost treated like a wedding, which thus brings us to today’s blog for Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah save the date cards!

Your child’s Bar Mitzvah is such an important rite of passage in their adolescent life, as they make the journey from childhood into adulthood, and we understand that calls for a large celebration with all of your family, friends and fellow synagog members.  When planning such an exciting, special and let’s face it – expensive event, we know you’ll want to make sure that everyone can attend your event.  Sending a Bar Mitzvah save the date card is a great way to inform your guests of the special event ahead, and ask them to reserve the date so that everyone can attend.

Our Bar/Bat Mitzvah save the date cards feature elegant yet fun designs which appeal to both adults and children, as the central focus at hand is your child being called to the Torah.  For Bat Mitzvah save the date cards, we have girly designs in bright colors that girls love featuring lime green, hot pink, orange and aqua blue.  Choose from designs in plaid, polka dots and hologram confetti.  For Bar Mitzvah save the date cards we have masculine Jewish designs that showcase your child’s venture into  manhood.  Choose from deep colors of gold, navy, silver and hunter green featuring the Star of David, a foiled Torah, the city of Jerusalem or a party bus.  We even carry ticket stub Bar Mitzvah save the date cards which can act like an admission ticket for your event.  These tickets are great because you can choose your ticket colors, as well as the envelope color to coordinate the save the date ticket with your event.  Add a digital photograph of your child to commemorate the event, which also makes a great keepsake.

Send your Bar/Bat Mitzvah save the date cards out approximately 4-6 months prior to your event, or possibly earlier if you have a lot of out of town guests.  Your save the date cards should include the basic information about your child’s Bar Mitzvah, without giving away too much information so that it looks like the actual invitation, (and also, you don’t want to give too much information because with sending it out so far in advance, your party location or times may change).  Include the message to save the date, your child’s name and their Bar Mitzvah date.  You may also want to include a city/state for out of town guests so that they can plan for accommodations if needed.  Then be sure to put “Invitation to follow” at the bottom so that your guests know that more information about your special event will be coming in the following weeks/months.

Each Bar/Bat Mitzvah save the date card can be coordinated with one of our Bar/Bat Mitzvah party invitations so that you can create a coordinating ensemble for your child’s event.  Check out some of our favorite Bar Mitzvah save the dates below and set the scene for your entire event!

Raise your hand if every time you take your child into the grocery store they beg and plead with you to get them one of the balloons floating at the checkout counter – been there, done that!  Or, maybe your child has been asking you for a pet for a very long time and it’s just not in your budget or family plan at the time being.  Our newest vendor has taken two of children’s favorite things, balloons and pets, and turned them into one fabulous toy and party decoration that can’t be beat!

Introducing My Own Pet -a one of a kind vendor who has created this innovative collection of helium pet balloons!  They look like real pets and best of all, they are made out of a neutrally buoyant material which makes them float low to the ground, so that you’ll never have to worry about your child’s balloon floating away or popping on the ceiling anymore!  Each balloon pet comes with a leash and crinkle legs/paws and feet which allow your child to walk their balloon pet around, just like they would a real pet!

These balloon pets are perfect as a gift for your child’s birthday or maybe even a party favor for each child attending your kid’s party.  You can even purchase a bunch of balloon pets as party decorations, which works great for kids birthday parties with a farm animal, safari animal or pet theme.

Our My Own Pet balloons come in a variety of your child’s favorite animals including cats, dogs, horses, dinosaurs, frogs, penguins and bugs.  Our farm animal balloons feature ducks, cows, chickens and deer. Our safari animals feature panda bears, giraffes, zebras and elephants.  Our most popular dog pet balloons feature some of the most popular dog breeds around from saint bernards to toy poodles, pugs, terriers, shiba inus, golden retrievers, welsh corgis and pointers.

Bring your child’s imagination to life with this fun and one-of-a-kind collection of kids balloon gifts.  It will give your child not just hours, but days of fun – and makes an amazing party decoration!