Wedding Invitation Cards
The invitation itself is the heaviest piece in the suite and the one that carries the impression work — most sit at 5×7 on a 220lb or duplexed sheet. Everything else in the suite is priced against it: the detail and RSVP cards usually drop to a single-ply stock so the whole set can be produced without the cost doubling for pieces guests glance at once.
What people actually ask
- What is the standard wedding invitation size?
- 5×7 inches is the default and the easiest to envelope. Square formats and long 4×9 cards both work, but they cost more to mail and need envelopes made to match.
- Should every card in the suite be the same thickness?
- Usually not. Keep the weight and the impression on the invitation and drop the details, RSVP and menu to a lighter single-ply — the hierarchy reads as intentional and the budget goes where it shows.
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The wedding invitation is the piece a guest holds longest and the only one in the suite that gets read standing up, twice. That's why we build it as the heaviest card in the set. Most of the invitations we print sit at 5×7 on a 220lb sheet or a duplexed sheet built from two plies, because impression work — letterpress, deboss, foil under pressure — needs depth to sink into. Then we price the rest of the suite against it, and drop the pieces guests glance at once down to a single ply. Below is how that decision actually plays out on press.
Impression work needs depth, which is why the invitation gets the thickest sheet
A letterpress plate doesn't lay ink on a sheet so much as push it in. The type sits below the surface, and you can read the depth with a fingertip in the dark. That only works if there's material to displace. On a thin sheet the plate bottoms out — you get a bruise pushing through to the back and a shallow, gray hit on the front.
A 220lb sheet gives the press room to work. So does a duplexed card, which is two plies bonded into one thicker card. Both hold a clean, deep bite and stay flat afterward instead of curling toward the plate.
Two-sided impression is the landmine nobody mentions until proofing
Here's the thing that disappoints people after the fact: if you letterpress or deboss the front of a card, the back is no longer clean. The impression pushes through. On a single 220lb sheet you'll see a ghost of the type on the reverse, which is charming on a one-sided invitation and a problem if you planned to print details on the back.
Duplexing solves it. Two plies bonded together mean the front impression stops at the seam and never reaches the back. It's also how you get a two-color card — a colored ply behind a light one, with a fine stripe of color visible at the edge.
The RSVP and detail cards do not need to match the invitation's weight
A guest reads the invitation, sets it on a counter, and comes back to it. The RSVP gets filled out and mailed away. The detail card gets scanned once for a hotel block. Those two pieces do not earn the same sheet.
We usually drop them to a single-ply stock in the same paper family and the same ink. It reads as one suite in the hand — same color, same surface, same type — but the whole set can be produced without the cost roughly doubling for cards nobody keeps. If you want the RSVP to feel substantial too, we can carry the thickness through. It's a budget decision, not a quality one.
Common questions
It's the size that holds a full block of type — names, date, time, venue, a line of verse — without crowding the margins, and it stays readable at arm's length. It also nests cleanly with smaller enclosure cards, so the RSVP and detail cards sit inside the same envelope without sliding around.
Need the entire invitation suite drawn?
Invitation, RSVP, details and envelope composed for this stock and finish, with press-ready files for each piece.