Wedding Order of Service: Your Guide to Beautiful Ceremony Booklets and Cards

While we're here- a quick hello. I'm Becky and Hawthorne and Ivory is my wedding stationery design studio. I make colourful, fun-loving save the dates, invitations, on the day pieces including order of service booklets and cards, guest books and thank you cards for UK couples.

Your wedding ceremony is the heart of your special day, and a wedding order of service booklet helps guide your guests through every meaningful moment. More than just a functional piece of paper, your order of service can become a beautiful keepsake that reflects your personalities and sets the tone for your celebration.

An order of service is essentially an outline of your wedding ceremony. It will include the key moments, songs, hymns, readings, and often a list of your wedding party members. But here's where it gets exciting- we can transform this practical necessity into something truly special that your guests will treasure long after your big day.

Whether it's a religious service, a civil ceremony, or a gorgeously personal celebrant-led ceremony, an order of service is super handy to have. Trust me, your guests will appreciate the heads-up on what's happening!!

Let's explore how to create an order of service that's both helpful for your guests and beautifully personal to you as a couple.

Which Wedding Services Need an Order of Service?

Different types of wedding ceremonies benefit from having a wedding order of service, and each brings its own unique requirements and opportunities for personalisation.

Church Weddings

Traditional church services often follow established liturgies that guests might not be familiar with, making an order of service particularly valuable. Your booklet can guide guests through hymns, prayers, and ceremonial elements, helping everyone feel included in your celebration.

NOTE: Catholic services typically require more pages due to their longer format and additional readings, so plan accordingly when designing your booklet.

It's important to note that the vicar or priest will typically guide you on the structure and details of the order of service. Additionally, many churches request final approval of the designs to ensure everything aligns with the traditions and requirements of the ceremony. Be sure to consult with your officiant early in the process to make this step as smooth as possible.

A few starting points with guidance for church services (totally non-exhaustive!): Church of England | Catholic | Methodist

Civil Ceremonies

Civil services led by a registrar tend to be shorter and more straightforward, but an order of service still adds a lovely touch. These ceremonies often include personal vows and chosen readings or music, which your guests may appreciate having outlined in a beautiful piece of stationery.

Be aware that communication can be limited with registrars in the run-up to your big day. At my own wedding, I had to structure our ceremony myself when it came to creating the order of ceremony and then ensure this was followed on the day. Your experience may vary!

Guest Advice from Eleanor…

Eleanor Willock, The Full Stop Celebrant, sees the order of ceremony as part of the guest experience.

"It's my job to make your ceremony beautiful and memorable, and what you leave on their chairs for them to find when they sit down can really kick off the day in the way that you'd like it to go on. Firstly, people like something to read whilst they are waiting for the ceremony to start, so take full advantage of that. The best bit about paper or card is that it has two sides, so, as well as giving them the key info about who's doing what and when, you could:

- Tell them something funny or personal about the people on the front two rows - like a main character guide - Give them a little crossword or quiz to do, and give out a prize - Have them draw a picture and sign it for your guest book - Make it into a paper plane and have them throw those instead of confetti - Print the words to a song you'd like people to sing on the back there - Have your celebrant (ideally, me) give you some gorgeous cute quotes that you've said about each other to get the vibes flowing and print them on the back - Design a relationship timeline and add in some of the key people to it - guests love to feel involved - Work with your celebrant (again, ideally me) to find a way to use the blank back page. Recently, I spoke to all the guests before the ceremony and asked them to write the one thing they wanted the brides to be for the rest of their lives in big letters on cards, and had them hold them up as a surprise. It was amazing, such a moment. - Make the back be a postcard, put a stamp on it, ask them to review the wedding and send it to you sometime in the next year as a happy reminder

In short, use them for more than one purpose. You can say so much to people, and give them a real flavour of who you both are, as well as making guests feel like they are truly part of your ceremony."

Thanks, Eleanor!! Eleanor and I worked together on a gorgeous styled shoot, she's truly wonderful, more of that over here!

Guest Advice from Louise…

Louise Gather, Kickass Gatherings, has even more advice when it comes to celebrant-led services and what we can include in your order of service!

"It can be really easy and useful for couples to create an order of service for their celebrant ceremony. Most celebrants will share your script with you beforehand and will probably use headers to signpost the different parts of the ceremony, so these can be used to create a simple timeline of the ceremony's structure and ingredients.

If a ceremony includes some meaningful symbolic acts such as drinking from a quaich or a handtying, it can be nice to add a little extra history and context around those.

Sometimes celebrant ceremonies might include a guest singalong, usually to a fairly well-known modern song… but even they can have pesky verses where nobody really knows the words, or maybe your Aunt Doris hasn't listened to any music released beyond 1954. An order of service is the perfect place to put those lyrics so that nobody has an excuse for not singing along, and I have definitely found that having the words printed for people makes a big difference!

Celebrant ceremonies might also include some sort of guest interaction element, such as a quiz - at a recent wedding, I asked guests to vote which of the grooms some anecdotes referred to. So, 'Who made the first move?' 'Who conveniently broke their leg just before they moved house?' and the grooms created an order of service which could be folded to form voting paddles so guests could indicate their answers. It went down really well!"

And thank you Louise!! Honestly, I absolutely love celebrant ceremonies… Booking a celebrant would be one of the very few things I'd change about read more! The level of heart and personalisation that these talented celebrants can add to your wedding service is just unreal.

So if you're looking for a wedding ceremony packed with personality, then this is absolutely the way to do it. Speaking of which…

Design Considerations for Printed Perfection

When planning your wedding order of service, think about the practical elements that will make it both beautiful and functional. Consider the length of your ceremony when deciding on the number of pages- a simple civil service might need just two pages, whilst a traditional church service could require eight pages and beyond.

The format you choose depends on your ceremony's needs and your design preferences. A simple folded or double-sided card works beautifully for shorter services, whilst longer ceremonies benefit from booklet-style formats that provide ample space for all the elements you need to include.

If you're wondering how many pages your order of service should be, don't worry- I'm more than happy to guide you through this! Together, we can figure out the perfect length to keep everything clear and easy to follow for your guests.

Your order of service should complement your overall wedding stationery suite, creating a cohesive look that ties everything together. From your save the dates and invitations, through to every single little touch on the day itself.

TOP TIP: Consider having beautiful prints made for your readers, so they have something elegant to read from rather than a crumpled piece of paper.

Your Next Steps to Beautiful Ceremony Stationery