Are you at the stage of organising your  wedding invitations and stationery? Just the thought of organising this part of the wedding is a nightmare for some  brides. Where to start, what to choose, should you, could you do it yourself?

In this interview with Melita from Invitations By Melita in Canberra, we discuss everything you'll ever need to know about ordering invitations for your wedding.

At the start of our chat, Melita mentions her love of "paper" that drew her to the wedding invitation business and at first I can honestly say I was a little surprised that anyone could love paper. Sure, I love paper for a different reason, I love photos and still believe there is no substitute for a beautiful print but just "paper" - surely not.

It certainly did become clear that Melita really is passionate about paper and paper products - but I think it's more than that. After chatting, it became clear to me that while Melita may love paper, I believe it's people that she really loves and sharing her talent and expertise of paper with them.

Having never met in person and only by chance a few months ago when releasing the Wedding Discount Card, it was immediately obvious just how passionate Melita is about helping others and how eager she is to get things right and be as truly helpful as possible.

It's totally clear after our interview, just why her clients love her so much and why everyone in the wedding industry in Canberra all have lovely things to say when "Invitations by Melita" is brought into conversation. If you're in Canberra or anywhere in the ACT and planning a wedding, you absolutely have to chat to Melita about your invitations, I'll bet you'll end up as friends.

Back to the podcast - one interesting thing that occurred to me during the interview is your wedding invitation supplier can do so much more than your invitations. As Melita mentions, anything that requires paper for your wedding, your stationery supplier can help you with or do for you.

Some of the other "paper" wedding things include:

Save the date cards and envelopes
Place cards for your reception
RSVP card that can form part of your wedding invite
Ceremony booklets
Table designations
Reception meal menus
Thank you cards

During our interview, I raised the topic of invitations matching the wedding theme but was corrected with the right terminology being scheme. Melita rightly points out that not every bride will have a "theme" for their wedding but every bride will have a colour "scheme" that they like to stick with.

Once you have a scheme in mind, all the fun of planning your invitations and paper additions come into play and your invitation supplier goes into action. With so many options available, you really will need some guidance and much of that will depend on how much you'd like to do yourself or have your supplier do for you.

Melita gave me the rundown on every question and stationery option I threw at her including: 

DIY inviations and stationery

Full service and what you get
Current invitation trends
What's always popular
What training is required to go DIY
Is the training included?
Will you need guillotines and other equipment?
Choosing the right paper stock
Can any paper you choose be used for printing?
Is it a good idea to order wedding invitations online?
How many invitations will you need - no, it's not the number of guests?
The correct timing to send invitations and save the date cards
Font styles and options
Wording for your invitations
Pricing of the different styles and options
Lead times you need to consider to get the paper style you want
And more!

If you have any wedding invitation related questions after listening to this episode, leave them in the comments or email me and I'll chase up the answers with Melita.

Before this interview,