How to Make Prayer Cards For Your Wedding
/SAVANNA POLASEK
Enhance your wedding day with a unique and thoughtful memento: Catholic prayer cards.
PHOTOGRAPHY: PILLAR & PEARL
These cards will allow you to share your faith in a beautiful, inviting way with Catholic guests and with those from other denominations.
Give a keepsake of your special day that guests will appreciate, keep, and use for years to come.
Choose a saint and/or a prayer
Many Catholic prayer cards often feature a specific saint. For your wedding prayer cards, this could be a chance to celebrate and recognize a saint you connect with.
You might choose your or your fiance’s patron saint. Or you might choose a saint that has had a meaningful role in your relationship. Do you and your future spouse have a special devotion to a particular saint? Have you consecrated yourself to Mary or St. Joseph? Does your wedding fall on a particular feast day? If you have trouble deciding, you can look to patron saints of marriage and family life.
After deciding on your saint, find or write a prayer to include on the back of the card. You may want to research different prayers to the saint you’ve chosen then adapt it to fit your prayer intention.
For instance, for my wedding, I chose Saint Elizabeth of Hungary because she is my patron saint and a patron saint of brides. I found a prayer to Saint Elizabeth in the Treasury of Women Saints by Ronda Chervin and edited it slightly for our prayer cards.
Choose the image
Next, find, make, or commission artwork of your chosen saint.
If you find artwork you’d like to use for your card, check and see if it’s free or licensed. Is there a watermark? Is the design for sale on Etsy? If the art is not free, consider messaging the artist directly, sharing your idea, and seeing if you can use their work.
Design your card
Finally, it’s time to design your card. If you’re a whiz with graphic design, you can design your own card using Adobe Photoshop or InDesign. Check out this tutorial for more help.
If not, head to your local printer. Given the specifications of size (3.5 inches by 2.5 inches) and paper type (I recommend a semi gloss card stock), the printer should be able to put one together for you. You may want to bring a prayer card as an example to further explain or clarify your vision. Make sure you ask for a sample before approving a full print run.
You can include your unique wedding prayer cards with your mass programs or at your reception. Or you can display them next to your guest sign-in table, on tables, or alongside favors. If you have extra, you can include them with future wedding gifts or cards for others.
About the Author: Savanna Polasek is the creator of Memoir Ink, a company dedicated to publishing memoirs, autobiographies, and biographies for people. She believes in the power of personal narrative and its impact on our perception of history, ourselves, our present, and future generations. She is a Catholic convert and currently lives with her charming husband in Austin, Texas. In her free time she enjoys exploring Texas, listening to Catholic podcasts, reading, and writing fiction.