Wedding Newsletter?

Wedding Newsletters: Why You Need One

There are lots of people you need to fill in about the wedding -- bridesmaids, groomsmen, parents, vendors. The most efficient way to do it? A newsletter. Here's how.

One of the toughest things about wedding planning is making sure everyone knows what's going on. Between your two (or more!) sets of parents, your siblings, and the wedding party (spread out over the continental U.S. Yikes!) how are you supposed to keep everyone on top of things? It's easy -- put together a newsletter. Here's our handy guide.

Why Do A Newsletter?

It's a way for you to let everyone know the wedding skinny all at once, in writing, so there's much less chance of last-minute confusion. Also, putting all the information together for your newsletter will probably help you organize it in your own head, too.

What Should Be In It?

A newsletter can be as simple as a list of everyone intimately involved in the wedding, what their role is, their phone number, and their e-mail address, so everyone can keep in touch and/or will know who to call (besides you, of course!) if they have questions or problems. You may also want to include information about your wedding vendors and who they are. Feel free to get creative -- if you send out a newsletter early in your engagement, do a little "getting to know you" section in which you include a photo of each attendant plus a paragraph about them and their relationship to you and your honey.
The newsletter is an invaluable place to give bridesmaids information on fittings and let groomsmen know which formalwear store you're using. You can request ideas, info, or help from specific people. And maybe most importantly, you can give everyone who needs it a detailed itinerary for prewedding parties and the wedding day, so no one will be clueless about where to go and when.

A newsletter can be as simple as a list of everyone intimately involved in the wedding, what their role is, their phone number, and their e-mail address.

When Should I Send It Out?

You might decide to do several installments -- one right after you've chosen your wedding party, one before the shower, and one a week or two before the wedding. You could get really into it and do monthly issues, or you might just do one sometime in the middle of wedding planning. It all depends on what information you feel you need to give out and how timely it has to be. For example, you won't know the exact times everyone needs to be everywhere on wedding day six months before the date, but you will know a week or two before -- and that's the prime time to fill in everybody else.

How Do I Do It?

The easiest way is to design and write the newsletter on your computer, and then print it out and make copies made to send out. If you've got a desktop publishing program like Quark Xpress (or one you can borrow at work), you can make it look like a real publication, with columns, headlines, the works. If everyone who needs to get it is online, just do a group e-mail!

Who Should Get It?

Everyone who would benefit from the information you include. Definitely everyone in the wedding party (that should include the parents of any child attendants), your parents, and maybe wedding professionals (florist, photographer, etc.) if the information is relevant to them as well. The exact mailing list for your newsletter is pretty much up to you.

reposted from the Knot