Wedding Mass Booklets - a Guide to Making your own!

Making your own Wedding Mass Booklets is something many brides and grooms decide to do and a lovely personal touch for your wedding day!  Many guests keep the booklet as a reminder of the day. This page is designed to make the job a little easier.

Choosing the readings and other aspects of your ceremony.

A good place to start  when planning the ceremony itself is  www.together.ie.  This site has  a great page giving guidance on various readings, hymns and exactly what your mass booklet (and wedding mass itself) should and shouldn't contain in terms content!  It also gives guidelines for weddings with and without a nuptial mass. See it all HERE.

GettingMarried.ie also have a fantastic tool to help you create the basic content of your mass through an online template which allows you to select readings etc. from a list!  See it HERE

Creating and Printing the Booklet - The Templates

Once you have the mass ceremony decided, you can now  get ready to  create the booklet!  Below are a number of Mass Booklet Templates for you to choose from to help you with laying out the booklet on paper.  Many thanks to Brid, Sinead, Emma and Eleanor from WOL for supplying these.

1. A4 Booklet - MS Word.  To print this double sided, go to File> Page Setup> Paper> Print Options (a button at the bottom of the box).  Then click on the two boxes for "duplex printing".  This will print every other page of the booklet onto the paper the first time you run it through the printer, then you take the half printed booklet and feed it back into the printer a 2nd time to print on the reverse side (making sure to feed the paper in so that the blank side will be printed on this time)!  If this does not work,  try going into the Printer Properties before printing, select the Print on both sides option and set it to Manual.  It should then print out all the odd-numbered pages and give  instructions for feeding the paper through again. 
2. A5 Booklet - MS Word.  The same content as the A4 booklet, but laid out for an A5 size booklet. 
3. A5 Booklet - MS Word - Separate Documents for Front and Back. 
   • Front Template 
   • Back Template  This is a great template to use if you don't have MS Publisher at home.  Upon opening it might look a little complicated, but it's designed for feeding first one side of the paper into the printer, and then the 2nd.  To add your content,  simply follow the page numbers and you should be fine.    When ready to print, feed first the Front Booklet into the printer.  Then, when finished, reverse the paper and feed in the other side to do the other side of the paper using the Back  Template.  Does that make sense?  Hope so.  Works well in reality so try it out.
4. A4 Booklet Folded in Two Lengthwise - long, narrow.  MS Publisher.    This is a blank template designed to create a long, narrow mass booklet of A4 pages folded in two length wise.  Lovely font and additional music note embellishments. 
5. A5 Booklet - without full Catholic Mass - MS Publisher.  This has a lovely layout and feel to it.  Prints out on A4 pages to create an A5 Folded over booklet.
6. We just found this - a great A5 size Order of Service Booklet from the Church of Ireland.

What paper to use for printing?  Most people use normal printing paper for the inside of mass booklets, but make sure the cover is of a good quality and if possible, ties in with the theme of the wedding.  If you'd like a higher quality printing paper to use instead, click HERE. 

A4 Booklet Covers can be found HERE.  These include pre-scored A4 Card, Indian Cotton thick paper and unscored  A4 card in various colours, flower papers and other backing options. 

Many people use normal white A4 printing paper inside, but if you'd like some matching A4 ivory smooth or laid finish paper, you can find them here.

Binding the Booklet

Binding using ribbon.  One option is to use ribbon around the spine of the booklet to bind it all together.  If doing this, it's best to punch holes in the spine of the booklet through which to thread the ribbon - it keeps the paper more securely in place than just tying the ribbon right around the spine.  You can find single hole punches here, and lots of choices for ribbons to bind the spine here!  If feeding the ribbon through  punched holes, we typically recommend using the narrow 3mm ribbon as it's easier to feed through than  e.g.  wider organza or satin.  

Binding using Staples.  The most common way to do it, but does usually require a long reach stapler to be able to staple vertically along the spine.  Check at work - there's often one somewhere! 

Binding using elasticated loops -  Now available!  Fantastic easy to use gold and silver elasticated loops perfect for binding the spine of A5 booklets.  Simply fold the paper and booklet cover, and stretch the pre-tied gold or silver metallic loop around the spine of the booklet to hold the pages in place!  Find them HERE