I tried using AI to create custom wedding invitations. What went right and what went wrong

Weddings are expensive and very personal events where the engaged couple often spend a lot of money to make their fairytale come true. One of the first big expenses you’ll put your stamp of approval on are wedding invitations and save-the-dates.

Sure, you could find some simple e-vites or printable templates with watercolor flowers or a general theme to announce your wedding, but what if, for example, one of you is a huge nerd? (It’s me. I’m the nerd.)

What if you’re throwing a Star Trek-themed wedding, an engagement party with cyberpunk details, or a Baldur’s Gate 3-style bachelorette party? Custom invitations can be expensive. Here’s how to use the text-to-image tool Midjourney with artificial intelligence to make your wedding invitations not only stand out and arrive at minimal cost, but also perfectly represent who you are.

The mid-journey begins

Tackling something as important as wedding invitations requires a specialized tool that produces images of a quality high enough to be used as either digital or printed material. I use Midjourney, which has been used to create visuals for everything from graphic novels to less demanding images.

Midjourney uses text prompts to generate images based on its training data, like most AI tools designed to speed up art creation. Launched in beta in 2022, it runs on Discord through a web browser with the attractive price: Free for limited queries and a range of $10 to $120 per month for more prompts and faster results.

Since beta, Midjourney has added some of the most robust and customizable options of any text-to-image AI tool available, including blending two images into a new one and setting parameters for unique features, such as what Midjourney Developers call chaos, or clear difference, in images generated from a single command prompt.

I bet that the flexibility and specificity that Midjourney offers will produce results that will make your nerd wedding invitations shine brighter than crystalline unity.

No chatter, just results

In contrast to the chatbots ChatGPT and Copilot, Midjourney has no personality. It’s not designed for mutual collaboration and can’t elaborate on an image by referencing a previously created piece of art in conversation notes, but what it lacks in chatter it more than makes up for in versatility.

Here’s how to get the best results from Midjourney’s text-to-image prompt.

1. Be specific about the end use of the images. Tell Midjourney that these images will be used as printable invitations to avoid results like the following (invitations that would make any vampire bride blush with joy, but don’t work as actual stationery).

Adding the phrase “printable invitation” to the prompt produces more practical results, but they were a bit busy, which brings us to the next piece of advice.

2. Break down what you do and don’t do. With Midjourney, you can tell the tool to exclude certain elements in the images by entering a specific “No” command at the end of the prompt. For example, the invitations were supposed to be fantasy-inspired, but I don’t want them to contain mythical creatures, and the results they gave were heavy as scales and claws. This fictional wedding is, for heaven’s sake, a first-class event, not a Renfaire tailgate.

3. Refine the style of the images and add some feeling to the prompt. The results seemed less romantic and more “fus ro dah,” so I added “whimsical” and “tender” to the prompt, which resulted in the following. It still doesn’t read like a Baldur’s Gate theme, but Midjourney allows for what’s called “varie region” editing, where you can select specific elements to change.

I enhanced the scene with some Baldur’s Gate Easter eggs using the Vary Region command. This part took a lot longer than I expected – and by a lot longer I mean about 15 minutes of restorative results – but the end result was worth it.

Midjourney also adds English text to images with its text generation command and allows you to easily create higher resolution images (2,048 x 2,048 pixels).

Now all you have to do is paste it into a Word document, a Google Doc, or a tool like Canva to add text and send it out into the world so your loved ones can respond way too close to the event date. (If you can determine what the added items refer to, you may receive an invitation to the reception. Unfortunately, no goblins are allowed.)

And not only is your wedding stationery tailored to your exact interests, but you also eliminate the significant expense of hiring a designer to work on your invitations – especially if you use the free version of Midjourney. Even if you pay for the $10 per month version of the tool, this part of your wedding will cost you hundreds of dollars less.

Save money with AI? Now there is a use case.

For more visual uses of artificial intelligence, check out CNET’s guides on how to use AI to redesign your living room, how to create custom thank you notes with Midjourney, and how to use AI to plan your Halloween decorations.