Should you put a photograph on your invitation?

Traditional invitations carry no photograph at all. Save the dates almost always do. Somewhere between those two conventions is a real decision, and it depends more on the photograph than on the invitation.

What a photograph adds#

Recognition, mostly. An invitation with your faces on it is opened differently: it is personal before it has been read, and it is far more likely to be kept and shown to somebody.

It also does useful work for guests who know one of you and not the other, which is most of a combined guest list.

What it costs#

Formality. A photograph makes an invitation warmer and less ceremonial, and for a formal day that is a real trade rather than an improvement.

It also competes. An invitation is fifty words and one image is louder than all of them, so the typography has to be strong enough to hold its own or the whole thing reads as a photograph with a caption.

Where it usually works#

• Save the dates. Almost always. There is little to read, so the picture is the document
• Engagement parties. Informal by nature. See engagement party invitation wording
• Elopement announcements. The photograph is the news, since nobody was there. See elopement announcement wording
• Anniversary invitations. Where an old photograph beside a new one is genuinely moving
• Relaxed weddings. Garden, coast, small, informal

Where it usually does not#

• Formal or religious ceremonies, where the convention is strong and worth respecting
• Black tie evenings, where the invitation is doing a job of setting a tone
• Any invitation where the only available photograph is a phone snap taken at somebody else's wedding

That last point is the real deciding factor. A good photograph improves an invitation and a mediocre one damages it, and there is no design that rescues a badly lit picture.

Which photograph#

The one that looks like you, not the one you look best in. Guests are not judging the photograph, they are recognising the people in it.

Practical requirements, in order:

• High resolution. Whatever you have, use the original file rather than one that has been through three messaging apps
• Both faces clear and reasonably large. A distant shot of two silhouettes on a beach is a landscape, not a portrait
• Room around you. The design needs somewhere to put your names, and a tightly cropped photograph leaves nowhere
• Consistent light. A warm photograph on a cool palette is the thing that makes an invitation look assembled

Check the crop everywhere#

The one technical thing worth doing. An invitation is looked at on a phone held upright, on a laptop, and possibly printed. A photograph that works in one shape can lose somebody's head in another.

Look at yours on a phone before you send it, and check the version that appears when the link is shared in a message, since that is a different shape again and it is the first thing many guests will see.

Black and white is a good default#

It is not a stylistic preference so much as a solution. Black and white removes any conflict between the photograph and your palette, hides mixed lighting, and looks more considered than most colour photographs do at small sizes.

If your picture is fighting the colours, try it in black and white before you try a different picture. Choosing colours for your invitation covers the rest of that decision.

One picture, not four#

A grid of photographs is a card from a holiday. One image, given room, is an invitation.

If you have several you love, use one on the invitation and save the rest for the day itself.

The design has to be built for it#

A photograph dropped into a layout designed for type looks exactly like that. Choose a composition that expects an image, rather than adding one to a composition that does not.

Choosing an invitation design covers picking one, and it is worth trying your actual photograph in it before you decide.