Whether you go earth friendly and geeky and decide to send your wedding (and rehearsal, and bridal showers, and bachelor/bachelorette parties. . . ) invitations online, or send paper (recycled, perhaps?) invites, one thing you need is an original font! Don't be a bore with standard fonts given to you, like Times New Roman and Helvetica (albeit classic bores, ahem) — fonts set the tone for style as much as the color scheme and design.
I love Fonts 500 for this — they have over 500 free downloadable fonts and have got something for every wedding theme: classic (Jane Austen), edgy (Nauvoo), and your-name-in-lights (Marquee). There's also tons of commercially-used fonts, so if you've been dreaming of directing your family to the reception in Simpsons font, well, done and done. Other free font websites I like are 1,001 Free Fonts and dafont (both good for Mac and PC).
Be sure to check out more of our wedding coverage on I Do Sugar.




Faith
Woolrich
Manoush
This is a great post GS
Fonts are like friends, you can never have too many!
1I just finished our invitations! But I will definitely keep these in mind for the thank you cards. I'll have to post some pictures of our invites!
2Moemarsita, I hope you do!
3geek love the ideas!
4Um, I need help. I'm downloading the fonts, and everything seems to be working fine, but they aren't showing up when I use word - how do I get them into Word so that I can actually use them?? Help =(
5Hi Vsugar,
Are you running windows or mac on your computer? I know this seems obvious, but make sure that you are downloading the correct font for your type of computer. The fonts should be available for either mac or PC
If you are using windows, what version are you using (Vista, XP, etc...)?
Let me know and I walk you through the process of installing the fonts on your computer so you can use them in Word.
6ooo cool!
7I'm in the same boat as vsugar. I've got a mac and I'm not sure how to install the fonts properly. Help would be great! thanks!
8Hi mrc011 and vsugar,
I went to the site this morning and downloaded one of the fonts. It was a truetype font (which works on both macs and pcs) so I may have mislead you earlier when I said to make sure you are downloading the correct version of the font.
There is only one version of the font and it will work on both macs and pcs.
mrc011, installing fonts on a mac is easy. Once the font is downloaded, open the folder and you'll see a .TTF file. Just double-click that file and it should launch a program called "Font Book". It should display the font in a new window and you'll see a button that says "install font". Click this button and the font is now installed on your computer.
Installing fonts on a PC is a bit more tricky so, vsugar, if you're using a PC, let me know and I'll help walk you through installing fonts on a PC.
FYI, if you download and install lots of fonts on your computer, it can really start to slow down your computer. So if you are planning on downloading, say more than 30 fonts, then you might want to consider downloading a font manager program. There are some free ones online. If you want one, let me know and I'll send you a link.
Let me know if you're still having problems. good luck
9Thanks for the help, Calamari!
10I'm trying to download the fonts on a PC. How do I get them to work in Word??
11Hi greengen,
It depends on what version of windows you are using (Vista, XP, etc.)?
Let me know and I'll help walk you through the installation process.
12Here's a basic step-by-step guide for installing fonts in Windows. Give this a try and let me know if you're still having problems.
1. Choose Start > Settings > Control Panel
Note: In Windows XP, choose Start > Control Panel
2. Double-click the Fonts folder.
3. Choose File > Install New Font.
4. Select the folder that contains the fonts you want to install. (Make sure you have unzipped them first.) The fonts in the folder should appear under List of Fonts.
5. Select the fonts to install.
6. To copy the fonts to the Fonts folder, make sure the Copy fonts to the Fonts folder check box is selected. (This is a good idea, so the fonts are in your "fonts folder" and then you can delete the original copy sitting in your "downloads" folder).
7. Click OK to install the fonts.
13DIY invitations are the beginning of the end of high design. =(
14Calamari- if fonts are like friends I don't want any
Keep in mind while free fonts are tons of fun, add too many and it can really slow down your system. I just had a client yesterday complaining how slow her system was (Mac Pro with 6GB's of RAM, beefier than your average user) she had 610 active fonts. I turned them all off and her speed returned. I wouldn't keep more than 100 active at once, but that's just me.
15Macgirl is absolutely right you guys.
Having lots of active fonts can really slow down your computer. Especially if you are inexperienced in managing fonts, you probably shouldn't get too carried away downloading and installing free fonts. If you want some advice on how to manage or uninstall fonts, then post a question here and I'll post some tips.
16Hey, just be careful with finding fonts from dafont. While there are some great ones on that site, a lot of them are shareware, so you can only use them for on screen. You can't print them, and would have to buy the typeface to print it, even if you try to outline it it won't show up. The types aren't expensive though, usually only like 5-10 bucks, so if you love it, I'd say go for it. Just letting you guys know.
17Hey! I'm having problems with fonts from Fonts 500, Font Book opens up and tells me that if I install the font, the system might crash. Why does that happen? Do I install the font anyway?
18That's really weird nikki_
I went to the site just now and downloaded a font called "Loki Cola". I was able to double-click the .TTF file and font book launched no problem. I clicked on "install font" and it worked.
Have you tried a few different fonts? Does the error occur every time you try and install a font? Or just with one specific font?
19I downloaded about five fonts and the same errors kept on coming up.. I'll try again.
20Oh, and sometimes when I press install, nothing happens, no dialogue or whatever.
21Okay, there are a couple of things you can try.
If you just want to install a few fonts, open up your "Macintosh HD" and open the "Library" folder. You should see a folder named "Fonts". Drag the .TTF file into this folder. This is a way to install fonts without using fontbook.
I'm not exactly sure what's wrong with your font book app. You might have a corrupt preferences file. The preferences file for font book is located in your "Macintosh HD" here...
/Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/com.apple.FontBook.plist
You can trash this file and then relaunch your font book app to see if that fixes the problem. But if all you want to do is install a few fonts. Just dragging them into the Library Fonts folder should work fine.
Let me know if you're still having problems
22Calamari - Thanks for your help with this, but I did exactly what you said to do, and the fonts still aren't showing up in my Word file (Oh, I have a mac). Am I missing something incredibly obvious here? I type something, and I want to change the font, and so I go into the fonts dropdown, and the font I just installed isn't there. How do i get it there??? Hmmm, and that's interesting about the number of fonts slowing down the computer. Hmmmm.....
23Hi Vsugar,
Are you installing the fonts using fontboook? Or are you dragging them into the "libary/fonts" folder?
If you are dragging them directly into the "library/fonts" folder, then you need to restart your machine before the fonts will show up in Word. Sorry, should have mentioned that before.
Let me know if that works. In the meantime, I'll do a little research online and see if there are any specific issues with TrueType fonts and Microsoft Word for the mac.
24OMG. Calamari, THANK YOU!!! I'm being stupid, I know but thanks! I tried the first one and it's pure genius..
25no problem nikki_
You weren't being stupid. Computers are tricky and do weird things sometimes. I've been saved many many times by different people online, I'm just glad I could help someone else.
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