The Early Beginnings of Wedding Invitations

It goes without saying that if you are having a wedding, you need to purchase and send out wedding invitations.  But there’s an incredible amount of formality behind invitations that many of us don’t even realize.  It had to come from somewhere, though, so what’s the history of wedding invitations and how did it all begin?

It wasn’t until 1447, with the invention of the printing press, that wedding invitations even came to be.  Before this time, weddings were announced by someone known as a town crier.  This gentleman would walk through the streets announcing the news of the day.  Even after the printing press came to be, though, there was still a huge amount of illiteracy among the people of the Middle Ages.  Thus, wedding invitations became reserved for those of nobility.  Noble families would hire monks who were incredibly skilled in the art of calligraphy to write their notices.  When these were done, they would be sealed with wax and a coat of arms of the family.  Some people still will seal their notices with wax or put their family crest on their envelopes today as a mark of higher class.

As time went on, the printing press was still considered too poor quality to be tasked with something as noble and honorable as wedding invitations.  The tradition of announcing weddings in the newspaper did pick up from here, though.  But it wasn’t until 1642 when metal plate engraving was invented, that invitations could now be printed acceptably by a press.  This process required that an artisan write out the appropriate text backwards on a metal plate using engraving tools.  This created a stamp that could be dipped in ink and pressed onto the actual invitation.  Once complete, the press mark was then protected from smudging by being covered with a piece of tissue paper, another tradition that still rings true in our time.  Another interesting note is that invitations from this time were much more elaborate.  Often, each guest’s name was printed on the invitation.

These are the very origins of wedding invitations and in honor of their history, we still use some of the rituals and traditions that have carried through hundreds upon hundreds of years to appear in our newest invitations.  Now, when you are choosing if you’d like to seal your envelopes with a piece of wax or when you are selecting the tissue paper that covers your inside inscription, know that you are carrying forward traditions dating back to the nobility of the Middle Ages.