By: Seo Majesty
Submitted: 2010-07-08 23:48:39 | Word Count: 587
Did you know more than four million babies are born in the United States each year? Given that astounding number, there’s a pretty good chance one of your friends or relatives will eventually be expecting a child – if one isn’t pregnant already. If it’s your sister, a sister-in-law, favorite cousin or close friend, you may be inclined to throw the expectant mother a baby shower. When you do, you will need to send baby shower invitations.
Who Should You Invite?
Traditionally, baby showers were held only for women expecting their first child, and only other women were invited to attend. Nowadays, baby showers are often held for women who are adopting and mothers expecting second and even third children. Expectant fathers, husbands, boyfriends and their friends are often included in the celebration. When deciding who to invite to the shower, it’s best to defer to the expectant mother’s wishes. If the shower is a surprise, consult with her husband/significant other or a close relative or friend to discern who should be in attendance.
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Where Should You Have the Shower?
The number of guests expected to attend may dictate your shower location. If you’re inviting a large number of people, you may want to consider renting a conference room, clubhouse, church or other location suitable for a large gathering. If you’re planning a smaller, more intimate shower, you may be able to hold it in your home. Whatever location you choose, be sure to include directions and/or a map in the baby shower invitation for those who may not be familiar with the area.
Gathering Information for the Baby Shower Invitations
Before you actually get down to business creating your baby shower invitations, gather the pertinent information. Make sure you have the following essential details down so you can include them within your baby shower invitations:
Date and Time
Location (including directions and/or map)
Registries (or specific gift requests, if the mother-to-be is not registered)
Whether or not refreshments will be served
RSVP contact information
Names and addresses of guests to be invited
You also may want to gather a few fun facts or other tidbits about the mother-to-be, perhaps her due date, a baby picture of her, baby picture of the father, etc.
Selecting and Crafting Your Baby Shower Invitations
Once you have made the essential decisions and gathered all the pertinent details, it’s time to select the perfect baby shower invitation and put it all together. You can purchase baby shower invitations at many grocery stores and card stores, but they tend to lack a really personal touch. You can purchase card-crafting supplies from an arts and crafts store and create one-of-a-kind baby shower invitations from scratch, but that could take hours of your valuable time. Thankfully, there are Internet-based companies such as AstonishingCards to make crafting creative, one-of-a-kind, personalized baby shower invitations as easy as pie (maybe even easier!).
They have dozens of designs in colors and styles suitable for both boy and girl baby showers. Select your favorite, then use the personalization software to add fun baby photos of the mother and father-to-be as well as the pertinent shower details. If you choose the 5x7 baby shower invitation size, you can even add a map to the shower location. Upload the names and addresses of your baby shower guests and you’re done.
Crafting (and sending) Perfect Baby Shower Invitations is Easy
It really is as easy as pie. AstonishingCards will print and mail your perfectly crafted baby shower invitations the day after you place your order, and you can get back to planning the rest of the party.
