How to choose paper
Paper choice is two questions: how formal and how much budget. Cardstock is fine for almost everything — it photographs clean, it mails for one stamp, and the cost lets you allocate elsewhere. Cotton signals occasion: weddings, milestone birthdays, anything you want guests to keep. Pearlescent is the middle path — looks expensive, costs less than cotton, and reads beautifully at evening events.
The reason pros default to 300gsm cotton for weddings isn't snobbery, it's the tactile contract. When a guest pulls a 300gsm cotton card from an envelope, the weight tells them this matters before they read a word. Cardstock weighs less than a credit card; cotton weighs more than a poker chip. The difference is registered by the hand before the eye catches up.
If you're choosing between cotton and cardstock and the event is in a hotel ballroom, choose cotton. If the event is in a brewery or backyard, choose cardstock. The paper should match the venue, not aspire above it.
Vellum overlays are decorative — never use them alone. They sit on top of cotton or pearl, and the trick is registering the print on the vellum with what's beneath. Done well, a vellum overlay turns a flat invitation into a layered object. Done poorly, it looks like a packaging mistake.
How to design with your microsite
If you're building a Gish Occasion microsite for RSVPs, logistics, or the gift registry, the paper invitation should match. Not pixel-perfect — that's impossible across screen and ink — but the typeface family, the color palette, and the date format should reconcile. When a guest looks at the invitation and then visits the microsite, they should feel like one event, not two products.
Practical: Gish auto-fills the printed invitation editor with the microsite's names, dates, venue and RSVP URL. You can override any field; your overrides only affect the print order, not the live microsite. Most people change the title-case (microsites use sentence case; invitations look better in title case), shorten the venue, and spell out the time.
The QR code on the back of the invitation should link to your microsite's RSVP page directly — not the homepage. Inkgility generates the QR at print time so the URL is always the freshest. If you change the URL after printing, contact support; they can sometimes re-route the legacy QRs at the redirect layer.
Wording etiquette by occasion
Wedding. Hosts go on the first line. "Mr. and Mrs. Patel" if a parent set is hosting. "Together with their families" if the couple is co-hosting with parents. "Jordan Marsh and Sam Okafor" if the couple is hosting themselves. Then the request line ("request the pleasure of your company" for ceremony in a religious space; "request the honor of your presence" for non-religious; "invite you to celebrate" for casual). Names, then date, then time, then venue. End with the RSVP method.
Shower. The host's name first ("Priya Singh requests the pleasure of your company") then the guest of honor ("at a shower honoring Maya Chen"). Date, time, venue, RSVP. Always indicate registry on a separate insert, never on the main card.
Corporate. The organization's name and the executive sponsor on the first line. "The Board of Directors of Foundation X cordially invite you to the annual gala benefiting Y." Always include the dress code and the table-host or sponsor information. Black-tie corporate invitations should include "Black Tie" or "Creative Black Tie" in the lower right corner.
Milestone (birthday, anniversary, retirement). Lead with the milestone: "Forty years. One Maya." or "Thirty-three years at the firm. One retirement." Then the host line and the rest. Milestone invitations earn permission to be witty.
When to send by occasion
Send dates count back from the event. Lead times below are mailing time; production happens before.
| Occasion | Save the date | Invitation | RSVP cutoff |
|---|
| Wedding (local) | 6 months out | 8–10 weeks out | 3 weeks before |
| Wedding (destination) | 8–12 months out | 12–16 weeks out | 5 weeks before |
| Shower | — | 4–6 weeks out | 10 days before |
| Milestone birthday | 3 months out | 4–6 weeks out | 2 weeks before |
| Corporate gala | 3 months out | 6–8 weeks out | 3 weeks before |
| Anniversary / vow renewal | 3 months out | 6–8 weeks out | 2 weeks before |
| Retirement | — | 4–6 weeks out | 10 days before |
Wrangling RSVPs
The two routes are mailed reply card and digital RSVP. Mailed reply cards return at about 60% within two weeks of mailing and require a follow-up call or text for the rest. Digital RSVPs via a QR code return at about 80% within ten days, mostly from phones, mostly within the first 48 hours. The catch is that older guests are not equally comfortable with QR codes, and a wedding crowd often spans three generations.
The hedge: include both. Print the QR small on the back of the invitation, mail a prepaid reply card for those who prefer paper. Guest list software (the Gish guest list does this) merges both inputs so you don't double-count.
The RSVP cutoff should be three weeks before the event for catered weddings, two weeks for everything else. Caterers need a final headcount fourteen to seventeen days out. If you set the cutoff too late, you're making business decisions for the caterer.
Envelope addressing
Three options, in ascending order of cost and elegance: machine-printed addresses, professional calligraphy, and Inkgility's printed-calligraphy service (digital handwriting fonts, printed in ink directly on the envelope). Machine print is free on Gish Plus; calligraphy runs $1.80–$3.50 per envelope; printed-calligraphy is $0.80 per envelope.
Address the outer envelope to the household ("The Marsh Family") and the inner envelope to the specific guests ("Jordan and Sam · and guest"). The "and guest" line is how plus-ones get communicated. If you don't write "and guest," it isn't one.
Return addresses go on the back flap of the outer envelope. RSVP envelopes are pre-addressed to your address and pre-stamped. Yes, including the stamp — the social contract is older than the postal service.
