2024 Graduation Invitations | Custom Grad Party Invites (2024)

FINDING THE PERFECT GRADUATION INVITATION DESIGN

We recommend starting your search in one of four ways:

Start with the graduate’s photo: If you’re looking for a non-photo design, skip to the next suggestion. However, if you have a treasure trove of beautiful photos of your graduate, this is often the best place to start. After all, this milestone is about them and their accomplishments. Minted offers a range of graduation invitations with photos on the front, and every design can be additionally personalized with bonus photos on the back. If you’re looking to quickly sort through designs that are a good fit for your favorite photos, consider using the Find It FastTM tool. This tool will place your specific photo in all our designs, so scanning through them all becomes a breeze.

Pick your favorite style: All of Minted’s cards are designed by independent artists, making each design fresh and unique. When it comes to graduation party invites, Minted offers a wide range of styles. Consider your graduate’s personality and the type of party you want to throw, as you narrow down your choices. Is your graduate a nature lover or is the party being held in a garden, backyard or outdoors? Then perhaps a botanical design would be a good choice. Alternatively, are you going for a more clean and crisp feel for your graduate? Consider a modern or geometric design, instead. If you want your celebration to be casual and lighthearted, you may want to consider one of our funny designs. Simply manipulate our website filters to drill down to styles specific to your taste.

Think about the school level: There are so many milestones worth celebrating, such as elementary school graduations, high school, college, and even post-graduate college degree celebrations. Curated selections of high school, college and graduate school invitations can be a good place to start.

Go with your favorite color palette: You can also sort designs by color and pick an invitation that matches your desired graduation party theme, represents school colors, or is in your graduate’s favorite color. Picking a color palette will bring a cohesiveness to the entire celebration, starting with the invitation.

CUSTOMIZING YOUR GRAD PARTY INVITE

Once you’ve selected your graduation party design, it’s time to customize it with all the necessary information. Here’s a summary of the different ways in which you can personalize your invite:

Consider a unique format: From smart and chic postcards, to beautiful magnets, the format of your graduation party invitation is a great way to stand out from the stack. You can also choose between flat cards, which are great for hanging on the fridge, or folded cards, which are fantastic for including more photos or a personal message. Unsure of which format makes the most sense? You can’t go wrong with a classic 5” x 7” card. Or, leave an impression with our new grand-sized cards sized at 6” x 8”.
Add some shine: Foil adds a luxe shine to any invite, and Minted’s foil is hand-pressed onto thick, luxurious cardstock. For a personal touch, you can also add custom foil to your graduate’s name, school/university, or graduation year.
Play with text: As you begin to fill out the details of your grad party, you may want to customize the text such that it displays all the information perfectly. You can adjust the font size, color, and style, as well as the alignment within each text box.
Include a custom backer: If you need more space to list out all your party details, there is always space on the back of your card. Minted offers a wide range of custom backers designed specifically to honor the achievement of graduation. Showcase momentous moments from the year-in-review, show a then and now picture, or share an education timeline that spans over a decade.

WHO TO INVITE TO A GRADUATION PARTY

A graduation party is a great opportunity to thank everyone who has brought your graduate to this important milestone. This includes family, classmates, teachers, mentors and coaches. Since a graduation party is typically held around graduation, you may also want to extend the invitation to close family members of classmates, because it is likely that they will be in town.

WHEN TO SEND THE GRADUATION INVITATION

It is common etiquette to send out graduation party invitations 4-6 weeks prior to the event, to friends and family coming from out-of-town. If the invitation is going only to people who are local or live nearby, then you may be able to get away with just 3-4 weeks in advance. It’s important to keep in mind that there are typically a lot of events surrounding graduations, and, if you’re planning to host the event somewhere other than your home, it may become hard to get a reservation at the last minute.

WHAT TO INCLUDE ON A GRADUATION PARTY INVITATION

While there are many ways to design a party invite and make it your own, there are several important pieces of information that you will always want to include, so that your party guests know when and where to go, and what to bring.

The graduate’s name
The school they are graduating from, and majors or honors if applicable.
The time, date, and location of the party. If the invitation is going to people who are visiting from out-of-town, it can be nice to include an image of a map with your location clearly marked.
RSVP date and instructions. Let your recipients know how they should RSVP and by when.
A message from the graduate, expressing their gratitude and thanks towards the invitee. They may also wish to include a note about future plans, if they have been decided and if the graduate is comfortable sharing this information.
(Optional) Clarify “no gifts” if you are not interested in receiving gifts from attendees. A simple sentence can often do the trick: “We respectfully request no gifts.”

GRADUATION PARTY THEMES

Having a good party theme can bring a cohesiveness to the event and make it memorable for those who attend. Coming up with a theme can sometimes seem overwhelming. Here are a few unique graduation party ideas to help bring your gathering to life!

A favorite book: Designing your party around your graduate’s favorite book is a creative and unique way to make your party stand out. Stacked copies of the book will make for a clever centerpiece. You can design your cake around a favorite character or moment from the story. Print out your favorite lines from the novel and place them on tabletops for guests to read. You can even feature some of these inspiring quotes on your graduation invites.
New places: Many graduates move to new cities (and countries) after they graduate. This can be a great opportunity to celebrate it. If they’re headed to Chicago, consider having a hot dog bar and include Bears and Bulls memorabilia around the venue. If they’re moving to New Orleans, a cajun style meal with colorful Mardi Gras-style beads would be fitting.
Classic black and gold: If you’d like to keep the party classic, consider going for a black and gold theme. Pick a graduation party invite that features a gold foil press design to tie in perfectly with the ambiance of the celebration. Pick elegant black and gold embellishments, such as party signs, personalized bunting banners and glittery gold straws, to pull the look together.
Dreamscape: Consider making your party a real-life dreamscape as your graduate takes the next step towards achieving their dreams. Have a cotton-candy stand at the event, use clusters of white balloons to make decorative “clouds” and have your party guests write down wishes for the graduate as they enter. Leave a stack of personalized stationery cards on a table, and let your guests do the rest.

GRADUATION PARTY ACTIVITIES

Once your grad party invitation, theme, and menu have been decided, the final step is to figure out what activities your attendees will participate in. Food, drinks, and music will get you most of the way there, but it’s always good to have a couple of other activities up your sleeve. Here are three simple ideas:

Have a photo booth: Your graduate is ending a chapter of their life and these memories will be treasured forever. A photo booth is a fun way to capture moments and you can make it even more personal with customized photo booth props of teachers, school landmarks, school mascot, pompoms in school colors, or common phrases that you hear your graduate using.
Trivia about the graduate: Break party attendees into teams and ask questions pertaining to the graduate. Sample questions could include where they were born, what GPA did they graduate with, what is their favorite subject, what is their least favorite subject, etc. See which team knows the most about the graduate while also sharing information about them in a fun way.
Make a toast: Toasting the graduate is an easy way to involve all the attendees, and it makes for a great picture! Make sure you are all set up with drinks beforehand, and have some notes about what you’re going to say ready to go, in case you experience nerves on the day.

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