Wedding Invitation Sizes and Paper Stocks in Australia

Our wedding invitation is a set of up to three cards, and each has its own size: the invitation itself at 120 x 180 mm, an event details card at A6 (105 x 148 mm), and an RSVP card on a 100 mm square. You print the cards you need, and each one can go on any of our 99 papers. The save the date is A6.

Australia uses the international A-series, so an A6 card here is the same A6 card any local printer will quote you.

The three cards, and what each one carries

The invitation, 120 x 180 mm. This is the card that comes out of the envelope first, and it carries the essentials: your names, the date, the time and the place. It sits between A6 and A5, smaller than an A5 sheet and a slightly slimmer shape. We do not print invitations at A5, and if A5 exactly is what you want, that is a fair reason to print elsewhere.

The details card, A6. The practical one: the reception address, the dress code, parking, accommodation and anything else your guests need to find you. Moving all of that off the invitation is what lets the invitation stay clean.

The RSVP card, 100 mm square. How and when to reply. Square cards read as considered rather than traditional, but the shape is unforgiving: there is no long edge to run a line of type along, so the design has to be built for the square rather than squeezed into it.

If you are deciding which cards you need, the honest tiebreaker is the wedding website. If replies and details live on your website, the invitation can travel on its own and point guests there. If your guests would rather have everything on paper, print the set.

Ninety-nine papers, in seven families

Of the 99 card papers, 88 are coloured, six are creams and five are whites. If colour is what you want, choose a coloured paper rather than printing colour onto white.

That leads to the one constraint worth knowing before you fall for a design. These are uncoated papers, so a big flood of solid ink can mottle or crack on a fold. White ink is available on about half the range, and digital gold and silver on nearly all of it. Designs that let the paper carry the colour, and use ink for the type and the line work, print better and look better.

What the gsm number feels like

Gsm is grams per square metre, and for an invitation the useful split is simple. Around 100 to 130 gsm is text weight: it folds, it posts flat, and it is what our envelopes are made from. Around 270 to 372 gsm is card weight, and every card we print sits there, the invitation included. It holds its shape coming out of the envelope, and it has the small heft people register before they have read a word.

The gap between 300 gsm and 120 gsm is obvious in the hand and invisible on a screen. Our guide to invitation gsm goes through every card weight we print on, from 270 to 372 gsm, and what each one is like.

The five millimetres at the edge

Every card carries a 5 mm safe area. Keep type, names, dates and anything you cannot afford to lose at least 5 mm inside the trim.

This is where borders go wrong. A thin rule drawn right at the edge of the artboard looks crisp on screen and lands slightly off-centre on a real card, because trimming has tolerance and 1 mm of drift is visible on a border that a reader can measure against the paper edge. Either bring the border well inside the safe area where it can drift without anyone noticing, or run the colour off the edge entirely so there is no line to compare. The half-measure is the version that comes back looking wonky.

Envelopes get 10 mm rather than 5, so guest addressing needs more room than you would expect.

Matching the envelope

Our envelopes come in two sizes: 130 x 190 mm for the invitation set, and C6 (114 x 162 mm) for an A6 save the date. 24 of our 99 card papers have an exact envelope twin, in the same paper line and the same colour as the card. The rest pair with the closest colour on the envelope shelf, and we say closest rather than matching, because they are not the same paper.

When you are ready to design, invitations and save the dates and the design studio and print are the same set of tools: choose the paper for each card, and the place cards and menus that come later carry the same typeface and palette.

Where these numbers come from: the 99 card papers and 24 envelope papers active in the Managing Matrimony print catalogue on 28 September 2026; the shelf changes as mills discontinue colours and add them.