Everything You Need to Know About Wedding Details Cards

Pro Tip: Minted’s wedding stationery suites offer coordinating designs between the main invitation cards, details cards, RSVP cards, envelopes, and wedding websites. In addition to that, you can carry the invitation themes to your day-of through the place cards, menu cards, signs, programs, and more.

A wedding details card is a card (or series of cards) separate from your wedding invitation that contains additional information about your big day such as dress code, reception location and directions, accommodation, registry information, and more.

Also known as enclosure cards, these cards were crucial for communicating everything guests needed to know about a wedding weekend in the era before wedding websites. Today, including detail cards has become optional for couples, with some choosing to host all of that information solely on their wedding website. That said, many couples still choose to include at least one detail card in their suite to avoid cluttering the design of their carefully-selected invitation with too much text. (Not sure what’s the right move for you? Don’t worry, we’ll walk you through how to decide if you’ll need detail cards or can skip them in favor of your wedding website later in this article.)

The specific information that must be included on a wedding details card can vary based on the couple and the type of celebration they’re holding. That said, typically a wedding details card will include…

• Accommodation/travel information such as room blocks, recommended airports, etc.
• Reception information, if hosted in a location separate from the ceremony
• Dress code
• Transportation information, including shuttle bus timing and pick up/drop off locations
• Day-of itinerary, including start and end times for the ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception
• Information pertaining to any additional wedding weekend events, such as welcome parties, rehearsal dinners, and goodbye brunches
• Registry information

Depending on the size and scope of your wedding, you may decide that some of these details warrant stand-alone enclosure cards of their own, which we’ll dive deeper into in the next section of this article.

But, if you plan to include just one detail card alongside your formal invitation, focus on the details that are absolutely crucial for your guests to understand where they need to be at what time. Anything else can be left to your wedding website!

Because there can be so much information to share with guests about your wedding, there is a huge range of detail cards that you can include in your wedding suite. Here we break down the nine most common types of detail cards, providing examples and wording tips for each.

While your main invitation card will include the time, date, and location of your wedding, there isn’t always enough space to include all of the details of your big day without compromising design. That’s where a wedding day information card comes in — this is where you can share information like dress code, if children are included, weather expectations (if hosting an outdoor wedding in a season where the weather can be unpredictable), and a general timeline of the day.

These are the wedding enclosure cards that couples tend to be most familiar with. Response cards are where guests can mark their RSVP, and typically also include space for guests to identify a plus one, choose their preferred entre for the reception, and share any food allergies.

While many couples opt to keep track of RSVPs online, it may be a good idea to still include a response card that provides detailed instructions for how to access the website and where to go to RSVP — especially if you plan to invite many older guests who may not have navigated an online RSVP system before.

We highly recommend you include accommodation cards in your invitation suite if you’re hosting a destination wedding or if you will have a lot of guests coming in from out of town. If you’re hosting your wedding within the hotel where you have your room block booked, you could also use this card to provide direction information.

Reception cards are most useful if your ceremony and reception will be held in two different locations, or if there is a long break between the two. If your reception will take place directly after your ceremony and at the same venue, you can likely skip including reception cards in your invitation suite.

There are a few routes to take when it comes to direction cards (pun intended). If your ceremony and reception are in the same place, include directions from the hotel where the majority of your guests will be staying to your venue. If your ceremony and reception are in separate locations, it may be best to use your direction card to instruct guests on how to get from one venue to the other.

If your venue is difficult to find or is in an area that you know gets spotty cell service, including a custom map alongside written directions is something your guests are sure to appreciate.

For guests that you’re inviting to your rehearsal dinner, you’ll want to include a separate rehearsal dinner card alongside the rest of your stationery suite. In recent years, separate rehearsal dinner invitations have become more popular with couples looking to set a separate tone for the rehearsal dinner and wedding day. (And because it is often easier to mail them out in separate envelopes than keep track of assembling different sets of invitations all at once.)

Lastly, it is traditional for couples to include wedding registry information in a separate detail card. While this practice has fallen off over the last few years as wedding websites have become more standard, you may still want to include a registry card directing your guests to your website if you know you’ll get lots of questions about it.

Today, most couples choose to host the vast majority of the information pertinent to their wedding on their wedding website — so do you still need to include detail cards along with your invitation? The answer, like so much of wedding planning, is very much up to your own personal preference and circumstances.

When it comes to deciding which — if any — detail cards you’d like to include, it can be useful to consider the following factors…

• Budget. If you’re sticking to a tight budget, or aren’t prioritizing your invitation suite as a top-line budget item, you may want to consider skipping detail cards (or including just one detail card).
• Tradition. Most of the detail cards we’ve discussed here are rooted in pre-internet wedding traditions. If maintaining that connection to history and tradition is important to you, you may want to include wedding detail cards alongside your wedding website.
• Formality. While the invitation suite design you choose will go a long way towards communicating the formality and scale of your big day, including a thick stack of detail cards wrapped in a belly band is a very clear way to let guests know that they should expect to be dazzled at your wedding.
• Guest Comfort. If you know a large portion of your guest list won’t be comfortable getting the information they need about your wedding online, you may want to include at least a few detail and enclosure cards to avoid being overwhelmed by individual questions.

We know that it is easy to get lost in the details of everything you need to communicate on your big day. We hope this deep dive into enclosure cards gave you a bit of clarity on what to include in your invitation suite. If you have questions, or could use a bit of design help, set up a time to chat with one of Minted’s stationery experts through our wedding concierge.