5 Winter Wedding Invitation Ideas

If hosting a wedding during the colder months, give your guests a seasonal preview with a fitting invitation design. From gold embellishments to evergreen borders, Zola can help you create your perfect winter wedding invitation as well as thank you cards.

Pick a Seasonally Unique Layout

Cutouts and Beveling

Time to get creative with the scissors. Paper cutouts and shaping add dimension and modern flair to elegant wedding invitations. Start with these options for an invitation that’s a cut above the rest:

• Single Layer: One-layer cutouts simply carve out designs right onto the invitation (anything from snowflake wedding invitations to leaf patterns). The card material should be sturdy enough.

• Overlays: Like two sheets stacked, overlay cutout designs have a (usually thinner) top paper layer that’s cut in patterns to reveal the bottom paper layer.

• Side panels: Add patterned cutout side panels to your card. Guests will love opening the panels like double doors as they unwrap your invitation.

• Decorative edges: Deckled (or purposefully torn) edges give a rustic feel. On the opposite end, a detailed lace cutout edge would match any romantic or classic setting.

Folds and Construction

For a wedding invitation that truly stands out, step away from the traditional rectangle. If you want to shake things up, pick from these winter wedding invitation constructions:

• Gate-fold: Like French doors opening to a balcony, a gate-fold instantly adds elegance and luxury to your invitation. The side panels on this design also provide room for extra writing or folder pockets that hold RSVP cards.

• Tri-folds: With its pamphlet-like design, tri-fold invitations best fit casual celebrations or hosts who need to share a large amount of information. Sometimes couples will make one-fold a tearaway section, so that guests can easily return an RSVP or other response.

• Non-rectangle shapes: Love a single-surface card, but don’t care for parallelograms? Get creative and pick a different cookie cutter. Circles, triangles, and even petals are all uniquely fun shapes for wedding invitations.

Card Materials

For many guests, holding and feeling a physical card adds to the experience. If standard cardstock sounds like a bore, upgrade your invitation with these unique materials:

• Velvet: The second your guests feel this luxurious fabric, they’ll be transported to a cozy winter paradise. Stick with minimalist fonts and decor for the rest of your invitation.

• Wood: For wedding venues like ski lodges, log cabins, or heated farmhouses, carved wood invitations could fit the outdoorsy, rustic setting.

• Parchment: With their homey yet elegant feel, parchment paper invitations have a warm quality to them and are a subtle elevation from cardstock.

• Transparent: Give guests a taste of the chic celebration in their futures. Typically made with acrylic material, the sleek design of these clear cards reflects icicles.

• Plant-seed paper: Give your guests the gift of life with invitations on seed paper. Just plant the paper in fertile soil (after RSVPing, of course), and they’ll have a new sprout that will remind them of your upcoming celebration.

Know Your Winter Color Palette

Give your invitation the rich palette of winter. Here are some seasonally appropriate duos for your winter-themed wedding invitation, that can also be used for your bridal shower invitations:

• Emerald and dark navy blue
• White and cloudy grey
• Green and berry red
• Cream and sparkly gold
• Muted pink and red
• All white
• Maroon and deep gold
• Dove grey and dusty blue
• Red and ivory

Incorporate Winter’s Natural Beauty

Snow

Fresh and sparkling white, there’s just something magical about winter snow. Sprinkle a few snowflake designs (or even snowflake-shaped confetti) on your invitations, and guests will sense the wedding magic to come.

Botanicals

Whether through watercolor, print, or painting, incorporate these wintery plants in your wedding details for a natural beauty boost:

• Evergreen trees: To keep evergreen touches from feeling too Christmas-like (unless that’s the goal), stick with simple illustrations of full trees rather than a Christmas wedding card feel.

• Holly berries: That distinctive pop of red will immediately catch your guests’ attention. Set holly branches along the corners or borders of your invitation to frame your writing in festive style.

• Branches: For a subtle taste of nature, muted leafless branches create an elegant backdrop on any winter invite. And to underline headlines or provide a lush border, evergreen branches or wreaths will do the trick.

• Florals: Winter has its own unique flowers—poinsettias, snowdrops, pieris, winterberry, and mahonia all thrive in the season. No matter the time of year, florals always add a romantic and fresh touch so consider floral wedding invitations.

Seasonal Photographs

Is your wedding planning well ahead of schedule? Consider taking advantage of winter’s beauty for a different event—invitation photos. A romantic and on-theme couples photo can give your wedding invitations the ultimate personal touch.

Lights

Twinkling lights add sparkle to winter’s darkest nights. Guests will feel lit from within after seeing these glowing design elements:

For a spark of warmth, channel this seasonal staple into your winter wedding invitations. Guests will feel lit from within after seeing these glowing design elements:

• Fairy Lights Border: Frame a portrait layout in style with an illustrated border of fairy lights. Bonus points for designs with metallic foil that catch the light.

• Swooping Strands: Artful sketches of swooping light strands provide an inviting glow, as if the card were set under a beautiful banquet hall ceiling.

• Lantern Illustrations: Use muted hanging lanterns as a subtle backdrop or place an eye-catching watercolor lantern in the bottom corner.

Embellishments

A wedding invitation is more than a time, a date, and a request to RSVP. It’s a beautiful and personalized welcome to celebrate your love—that’s why the details and decor matter. For a seasonal preview of your style, consider these flairs for your winter wedding invites.

Foil

Like tinsel on the tree, foil lends an eye-catching sparkle to winter wedding invites. With foil, there’s one long-standing rule: less is more. Stick with one or two metallic elements, such as:

• Typography/Calligraphy
• Decorative patterns
• Borders
• Stencil designs (snowflakes, trees, etc.)

Letterpress Printing

Calling those with a taste for the classic, the academic, the elegant—letterpress printing might be your ultimate winter invitation design. Need an example? Check out our Kalispell Framed Letterpress invitation for minimalist botanicals and muted blue typography.

Gift Wrapping Touches

For a brush of wintery magic, packaging and gift-wrapping elements add unmistakable charm. Your guests will feel like they’re receiving a present with these under-the-tree-worthy touches:

• Enhanced Envelopes: Match your envelope and card colors or patterns. For a luxurious upgrade, personal wax seals add vintage fun to the mix.

• Pockets or Folders: Sneak in an actual gift (or RSVP response card) by adding pockets to your invitations. It’s a double-duty feature, adding exciting surprise and functionality.

• Bows: Whether rustic string or elegant silk, a bow can transform an invitation. This decoration especially works for gate-fold invitations where the card opens like a present.

• Boxes: Ditch the envelope and send your wedding invitations in an actual gift box. Just make sure to account for shipping costs in your budget.

5 Winter Wedding Invitation Styles

1. Minimalist and Elegant

Luckily for minimalists, simple designs or something DIY are perfect for winter. With some tasteful twists, your minimalist card will captivate guests as much as any ornate invitation. Photo credit: Greenvelope

• Backdrop: Keep things unfussy with a solid, non-patterned background (white is the “cleanest” looking). Without watermarks or photos, your invitation will feel like a snow-covered mountain in the early morning—peaceful, gorgeous, and serene.

• Typography: With minimalist designs, it’s less about the words and more about the space between the words. Stick with thinner, unadorned fonts that leave plenty of room—simple script or unadorned typewriter styles work best.

• Colors: On simple winter invitations, your best friends are whites and creams. For an eye-catching twist, try a solid colored background with white typography (Zola’s Hopewell Frame Invitation is a beautiful option).

• Decor: Even simple invitations can have a little flair—in fact, the eye-popping details are what minimalism is all about. Small illustrations, metallic touches, or light border patterns can bring personality to a bare-bones design.

2. Rustic and Bohemian

If holding your winter celebration amidst nature’s beauty, give a preview with your wedding invitations. These design elements will put guests in the mood for a natural winter wonderland:

• Backdrop: Set the winter rustic wedding mood with a scenic winter background (like the one from our Deep Creek Portrait invitation). Even better: If you and your partner have time for a winter wedding theme photoshoot, use your favorite pic as the main attraction.

• Typography: For a bohemian invitation, keep typography casual and reminiscent of real handwriting. This can include loose scripts, sans serif fonts, or other natural designs.

• Colors: Embrace the gorgeous palette of winter in your wedding invitations. Rich greens, snowy whites, lush reds, stark greys, and light blues all reflect the season’s natural beauty.

• Decor: If your backdrop doesn’t already provide some winter flair, then you’ll need some natural touches. Drawings of snowflakes, fir trees, pine cones and pine trees, and bare branches all give a taste of nature’s best.

3. Romantic and Classic

No matter the time of year, romance is always in style. To kick off a winter wedding as romantic as a red rose bouquet, consider these invitation ideas:

Photo credit: Elegant Wedding Invites

• Backdrop: Classic romance blends the simple, structured, and warm. Bring this elegance to your invitations with a solid or color-blocked background. If you prefer patterns, stick with soft floral designs (poinsettias add a seasonal touch).

• Typography: Bring effortless elegance to your invitations with classic, formal typography. Keep the type size small and consider serif or tightly formed script fonts.

• Colors: For romantic invitations, everything warm-colored is welcome—reds, pinks, yellows, even creams. During winter, dip your toes into the lusher tones of these wedding colors, such as deep reds and muted golds.

• Decor: With the right details, you can transform your invitation from basic to frameable. Metallic lettering and botanical borders, like the wreaths on our Oxley Lush template, give a stately feel to classic designs.

4. Fun and Festive

With so much holiday cheer, winter is a time for celebration. Embrace the season’s natural festivity with an invitation to match such as a Christmas themed wedding invitation. With these festive invitation ideas, your guests will be ready to party:

Photo credit: Hitched

• Backdrop: Ornate, colorful, and bold backdrops set a festive tone for your big day, such as lush solid colors or rich patterns. And for the highest of glamour, a little glitter in the background goes a long way.

• Typography: Invite eyes to dance across the page with striking typography. With a festive theme, fonts can be larger and ornamental—anything from swoopy scripts, to elegant typewriter, to curly-cued letters.

• Colors: Get ready to color outside of the white box (or invitation). Golds, deep reds and greens, rich creams, and royal blues all fit the festive theme.

• Decor: What’s more fun than a flash of gold in your Christmas wedding invitation? Metallic foil touches, like the gorgeous stencil pattern on our Baker Fan Design, will make your invitations shimmer and pop. Similarly, accents like a border wreath or velvet ribbon add to the seasonal fun.

Luxurious and Modern

No season embraces sleek and sharp designs like winter. If your reception vision and wedding colors is filled with crystal chandeliers, then consider these contemporary-chic elements:

Photo credit: Clarity Wedding

• Backdrop: Solid or minimally patterned backdrops work best. Like minimalist styles, modern designs love plenty of negative space. As an alternative, a stunning photograph of the glamorous venue or you and your partner could instantly draw guests.

• Typography: If leaning more into the luxurious, tight cursive scripts (possibly in gold foil) will elevate your invitation. If leaning more modern, go for long and thin sans serif fonts and play with type sizes.

• Colors: Pull up the dramatics with winter’s richest and deepest color contrasts—deep reds, metallics, Kelly greens, and stark whites. To make every detail pop, go against the traditional white setting and choose a velvety black background.

• Decor: Here’s where you can have a little fun. Channel wintery glamour with metallic touches, icicle borders, and extra features like lacy side panels. Want to amp up the chic factor? Tie a velvet bow around the whole card.

Embrace the Season with Zola’s Wedding Guidance

Whether boldly festive or sleekly minimal, every style has a spot in the winter wedding world. And with our invitation idea guide (and Zola’s premium templates), you can build a design that reflects both your style and the winter season.

Need some help with the million other items on your wedding planning checklist? No problem. Stick to your seasonal theme with Zola’s other planning tools, like our wedding websites or gifts and favors shop. With customizable designs and easy-to-use formats, Zola has all the resources you need to stay as cool as ice for your winter wedding.