10 Things to Include in Your Wedding Newspaper Program

Today we will talk with you about ideas for the wedding newspaper program.

While some people love the endless possibilities of what to include, others may feel a bit of writer’s block… especially when wedding planning is already so time-consuming! Luckily Tutfey has got you covered — read below to help get your creativity flowing!

1. The Main Event: A front-page article

Local Couple Happy on Wedding Day

A great front page headline sets the tone for your newspaper—and your event!

The front page article is the main focus and one of the first things your guests will read. This could be humorous (a la The Onion), have a more lovingly serious tone, or be a combination of both. First, the headline should draw the reader in and set the overall tone for your event (are you going for classic, traditional and formal or low-key, fun, and quirky?). A clever headline about how you met—like “From Friend Zone to the End Zone” or “Love at First Swipe”—could provide some unexpected intrigue to keep guests reading more. Or you can’t go wrong with a classic “John and Jane are Getting Married Today!” headline that speaks for itself.

As for the story, some couples like to describe the actual wedding ceremony and events (a recap of the ceremony for newspapers distributed during the reception, with a glimpse of what’s to come). Others will tell part of their love story—how they met, their engagement, the proposal, etc. Talk about your plans for the future and what you’re looking forward to after the wedding. Include a direct quote from the bride or groom, or a family member or friend. It’s those small personal touches that add a lot of interest to the story! Your guests will love learning more about the history of your couplehood with some of those details.

2. Order of ceremony/events

This is where you can include the order of ceremony details that traditionally appear in a wedding program (prelude, processional, readings, exchange of vows, etc.). Your officiant, minister or priest will likely be helping you figure out those details. Or, if you have various activities planned for after the ceremony (or the entire wedding weekend), you can let guests know what’s on the agenda. Things like dinner, dancing, photo booth hours, what time is the sparkling send-off, shuttle details, and more could all be included here.

3. A crossword puzzle

Wedding Day Post back page crossword puzzle

A crossword puzzle gives guests a fun opportunity to learn more about you!

What’s a newspaper without a crossword puzzle?! Give your guests a fun reception activity and help them learn more about you. In what city was the bride born? Where did the groom grow up? What month was the proposal? What is the Best Man’s name? As an added bonus, many of these things can be easily answered by reading through the rest of your newspaper, so it can encourage guests to explore the other content you’ve included. It’s also a way for guests to meet each other and do some sleuthing amongst your family/friends for the answers!

4. Wedding party meet-and-greet

The newspaper format provides adequate space for the opportunity to introduce the members of your wedding party, and even give a bit of background for each person. It’s a great place to recognize your closest people—explain how you met, how much they mean to you and thank them for being such a big part of your day. Especially if you have a smaller wedding party, you can use the available space to elaborate with personal details about your friendship or even include a short story about each bridesmaid and groomsman.

We recommend that couples with very large wedding parties either limit each write-up to a sentence or two, or only include names and photos of each. Of course it depends on what other content you are wanting to include, but a wall of very small and hard-to-read text can be pretty intimidating for your guests to read! It’s always a balance of including all the things you want, but also making the content accessible with a beautiful, functional page layout design.

5. An event map

Wedding event map

A schematic of your reception space helps guests find what they need! Cute icons and a legend add some visual interest within a functional design.

Are there some fun things near the venue that your guests might enjoy?

Are you having an after-party after the reception?

Or a farewell brunch the day after?

A map can be a great way to include this information! We recommended you create illustrated maps for guests. Sometimes with a large reception, a schematic of the venue can be super helpful—you’ve got to know where the bar and bathrooms are! You can also include shuttle stops for hotels, parking, and more.

6. A Q&A with the Best Man & Maid of Honor

These two probably know you best—so take the opportunity to get their side of things! Give your closest two an assignment by asking them a few interview questions and turning it into a featured Q&A article. What are they most looking forward to at the wedding? What are their wishes for the happy couple? What is one detail they remember about your initial courtship?

It can help to give them each a suggested word count so you don’t feel like you need to edit their thoughts later—especially if they excitedly write a short novel!

7. A cute timeline of your relationship

Wedding Timeline

Give a brief history of your time together with a relationship timeline!

It can be fun to include a little timeline graphic with (approximate) dates of some of your relationship milestones: when you first met, your first date, when the proposal happened, when you took that fun trip to Disney World together. Other ideas include pet adoptions, meeting each others families, moving in together, first text exchange, and first I love you’s. And if you’re not sure on the exact date (it can be hard to pinpoint!) a month or season with the year can work too.

8. Write about your pets!

Feeling like you have writers block? One thing that’s sure to get the thoughts flowing and into your wedding newspaper text file is your favorite furbaby! Back when my husband and I were planning our wedding, we talked a lot about how our Main Coon cat, Drake, couldn’t be at our wedding. We joked about what he would do at the ceremony if we brought him, how all our guests would think he was SO handsome, and lamented the fact that it would just be too complicated to include him. So you know what we did instead? We included a big picture of him on the back of our programs with a little write-up. (And by the way, our guests DID comment on how handsome he is, so we still got that memory.)

Your newspaper program is a great opportunity to include your pets! Write a little article about what they’re doing during the wedding (back at home? at doggy daycare?) and what they think of this whole thing. You can either choose to go humorously silly here or keep things more factual. Did you adopt your pet together as a couple? Include a little story about how that went. And of course, a photo here is essential!

9. Photo collage

Does your wedding newspaper layout have some extra space that you’re not sure what to do with? Well, do you also have a bunch of engagement photos you’re looking for a way to use, or other photos throughout your relationship that would be fun for guests to see? We recommend a photo collage as a great way to fill space while also adding a lot of visual interest for your guests. It’s nice to alternate large text areas with photos that draw the reader into the page. Including captions as well can help explain some of the details and significance of each s

Well, hopefully this inspires you to get writing for your wedding newspaper! Beyond this list, remember to just have fun with it—a writing or brainstorming session can be a really fun activity for you and your fiancé to do together. It will likely send you down memory lane and also build even more excitement for your big day!