Tell Your Love Story with a Custom Wedding Zine (Free Canva Template!)

So much thought goes into every part of your wedding, from the venue to the playlist to the colour of the napkins. But there’s only so much you can say in a traditional order of service.

That’s where the wedding zine comes in! It gives you space to bring guests into the day in a deeper way – to tell the story of how you met, why you chose your location, who’s who in the wedding party and everything else that makes the celebration yours.

When we saw how UK-based creator Frankie Gascoine used a mini newspaper for her wedding in Ibiza, we thought it looked brilliant and knew it would be so useful for other couples planning their day. "Guests couldn't stop talking about it," she says about the 16-page zine. “It was one of my favourite details from the day.”

We’ve partnered with Frankie to share her design as a free Canva template. It’s totally customisable and set up to print as a digital mini newspaper. Keep reading for a look inside and tips for using the template.

Get Frankie's zine template

What's inside the wedding zine template

Frankie's template includes sections for:

• A welcome message for your guests
• A short history or fun facts about your wedding location
• Your love story: how you met, the proposal or favourite memories
• Marriage advice or messages from family
• Introductions to your wedding party
• The schedule for the day
• Lots of photos!

You can stick with the structure Frankie used or swap in other features, like a crossword or local tips for the weekend. Make it your own!

Get Frankie's zine template

Tips for using the template

Before you start designing your newspaper, make sure to read our digital mini guidelines.

After opening the template, turn off Canva’s default margins (if they’re visible). We’ve set up a guide graphic on pages 4/5 to show you where the pages will be trimmed and where the safe area for text and important details is:

You can delete this guide or keep it while you work on your design. We recommend keeping it on and adjusting the transparency so that the guide overlays your design. You can set the transparency to zero while you're designing, then turn it up to check everything is in the right place:

The guide is different for odd and even-numbered pages because the pages are only trimmed on the outside edge. If you’re adding the guide to more pages, make sure to check that you’re using the right one.

The guide is positioned as the top layer by default, so you'll need to adjust the position to edit the elements below it. You can do this by left-clicking and selecting Layer> Send to back:

Remember to set our template graphic to 0% transparency before downloading your PDF, so that it isn't visible in your printed newspaper.

Exporting your design as a PDF

To download your design from Canva, navigate to Share at the top right corner and then choose Download.

Select ‘PDF Print’ from the drop-down menu and make sure the 3 boxes below that (‘Crop marks and bleed’, ‘Flatten PDF’ and ‘Include notes’) are left unticked.

If you have a Canva Pro account, choose CMYK under Colour profile. If you have a free Canva account leave this as RGB.

Then select ‘Download’ to save your PDF.

Need a hand?

If you have any questions about using this template, just get in touch with our team at support@newspaperclub.com and we're happy to help.