Wedding Invitation Stationery

I thought about doing my own invitations (pocket folds to be exact) and found several tutorials and couple of blogs explaining how to do them. On one of these blogs, the girl listed her total (paper, supplies, ink, ribbons, embellishments, etc) and it came out to MORE than if she had gone to a print press. Keep in mind, that was just one girl and one experience, but she said she spent about 2 weeks, working everynight, making invites for 130 people.

I’m doing RSVP cards, b/c I want to get them in the mail, but I’m also including our wedding website which has the option to RSVP on there. At the end of the day, I don’t want people showing up that didn’t RSVP, so I’m trying to make it easier on the guests and hope it’s easier on us in the end.

I can’t really recommend a DIY because I’ve never used one. It might be easier to just go get bulk cardstock from Michaels or Hobby Lobby and work with those.

I’d say that if you have time before the invites go out, purchase and make a little bit of the invite at a time. That way you’re not trying to do it all at once OR breaking the bank.

Good luck!

it is defenitlty worth it i did it and i liked that i could customize them however i wanted all i did was go to target and get the pretty paper

You know, most people only get married once. If you can afford it buy them. If you have time and want something memorable on a personal level then make them yourself. I didn’t use cards or do RSVP. Even though people say they will attend some don’t. Its really up to you.

i say diy invitations because why spend your money on something most guest will throw away and have wasted $$$ when you could use diy cards.

I wouldn’t. It makes the wedding look better and besides its say "This is my lucky day. Today’s the day my adventure will start and i want you to be there." If you don’t want to then dint but if you do but your afraid people will toss it, i would get them just because you can save a few and remember them =)

Here’s the thing. If you want a professional looking invitation you have to know about different printer inks, be very computer saavy when it comes to setting the printer settings and you have to be super detail oriented and patient as you will make some mistakes. You have to have someone to proof them before printing all of them and unless you use a LASER printer rather than an inkjet – you will have some jam ups especially with the envelopes – urgh! Well, I got mine done with a kit and I didn’t have to use the un-formal looking sticker address lablels because I’m really computer saavy and with the printer in knowing how to get something really nice out of an inkjet. But, these days – if you know how you can actually produce gold lettering. But, you have to be really good with that kind of thing. I also know about embossing so I was able to emboss when I did them for one of my friends. I have printed tons of wedding invitations using a kit – and I used to get professional paper very inexpensively and made it look like they cost a fortune. But, not everyone is going to have a good eye for detail so I don’t know much about you. But, if you have a friend who can at least help you out that is very helpful. You have to know how to write everything and what you are going to include. It is more postage but the RSVP cards are so crucial. What does happen – sometimes things do get lost in the mail and if you dont’ get an rsvp then you have a chance to give them a call and ask if they are coming so that if they lost the card and forgot the date or whatever – you can clarify that without anyone getting embarrassed. They are not just about knowing how many people you need to pay for a plate for – although – that too will save you money. For me, it’s so easy – but that’s because I’ve done them a million times and know what questions to ask the bride and I know how much time to plan for it to take and everything. If you are already feeling stressed or frustrated – it’s not worth it at all. Problems will occur – but they are cheaper and if done right can look like a company did them. Everyone loves a really nice invitation. It sets the mood and ambiance for your wedding from the start.

You already hit all the major pros and cons. Some people may not care, but some of your guests do notice details and will be delighted with the invitations. We got a lot of compliments on our invitations, and I was very proud of them. You are obviously the kind of person that appreciates quality. I think it is well worth the money.

Invitations are also a memento of your wedding that you will keep long after the wedding is over. The flowers will die and the cake will be eaten. But the invitation will be stashed away in some box for your grandchildren to discover years later. Invitations, to me, are items to be cherished, not disposed of. I keep every invitation and wedding program I get.

All but 3 of our RSVP cards were returned.

I had looked at the DIY sets, but decided that most of them weren’t my style.

We ended up making our from scratch. They turned out beautifully. It was quite a bit of work though, we created files in photo shop and took the files to Kinko’s to get printed. High quality laser printing versus ink jet is always better.

I had done some Research online and found a few stationary places with cheap bulk stationary that was wonderful quality. We ordered samples then decided what we wanted and ordered in bulk.

Once we had the paper, we took them to Kinko’s and when you provide your own paper, the printing end up being around 0.07 a sheet! We were able to print four invitations to a sheet. Plus RSVP cards (ours are not traditional that people mail back, but information on how to RSVP through our website or by phone) as well as accommodations cards with hotel and transportation information.

When we ordered the stationary, we were able to order pocket envelopes as well. We have put everything together and they look great. They look like they cost way more than they did.

Let me put this in perspective. A friend of mine got married this past October. She had beautiful professionally done invitations. With the two cards I have in mine. Pocket envelopes of the same type of stationary. The only difference is hers are about twice the size of mine.

The total cost of her invitations was 2,000. Now, for most brides, that’s around one fifth of your wedding budget if not more.

Here is my information:
Save the dates (designed out own, uploaded to vistaprint.com, magnets) 120
Envelopes (double duty for both save the dates and invitations 250 total) 30
Stationary from bulk source (including paper, card stock, vellum, and pocket envelopes, 100 of each) was about 145
Printing was 7.49
Total invitations AND save the dates: 302.49 and the time to put them together.

That’s the catch, some people have the time and others don’t. So if you have the time, DO IT!!! You will be happy. If not, I would order them from a company and not be stressed out about messing up the invitations of the printer or not having enough time or whatever else.

Good luck!

Yeah, I used some wedding kits from Michael’s, they turned out beautiful, and each invitation came out to be $1.61 including invitation postage and RSVP postage, which is CHEAP! It ended up being a total of $200 and they look better than all of the samples we got from pro printers.

I just got a DIY invite from a friend she did herself and it was beautiful. I also am getting married, next weekend, and I did my invites online at a place called vistaprint.com. You can pick out styles, colors, add your words, etc. They usually have a 25 percent off coupon for their stuff right there online so you pay like 8 bucks for 10 or so. Mine turned out nice. Yes,I received almost all of my RSVP cards back from people,so you need to send them to get a head count of who’s coming and who’s not as far as food/alcohol if you are serving it. Have a great wedding!

The one invite that i actually remember thinking WOW thats fab is my cousins and she had made them herself (although her husband is an artist!). Another friend made invites as a present for her sister in law and it cost more than buying them! So just make up a sample first and see if it really is cheaper (or maybe u don’t mind expense for nice cards?) I’m getting married this year and found invites on ebay for 40cent each, already got the sample and I love it, but then I haven’t an artistic bone in my body!! Good luck whatever you decide and congrats on your wedding
On the RSVP side of things I have my phone number and an email address so thats 2 ways of getting a reply without the expense of cards, your always gonna end up ringing some people who don’t respond anyway.

I recommend the kit if you have no paper-craft experience.

I do NOT suggest you just go buy 15 kits to make all of the invites you need- practice first, make sure that you can do what you set out to do. DIY looks easy to some, but others just can not actually craft!

Practice- make sure that you can make the invites look the way you want- and then have at!

If you are looking to save money, you can make your own invitations from wedding stationary. You can save a lot of cash by opting to make your own wedding stationary rather than hire out. If you are making the wedding stationary yourself, you should make sure you allow plenty of time. Another way to save money on wedding stationary is to send out e-vites. An e-vite is an online invitation.

Definitely include RSVP cards.

I am planning a wedding and have done several DIY projects, but invites is one that I chose to purchase. (I bought ours online at http://www.myjeanm.com, and they were very reasonably priced. We love them! Very customizable and great customer service too). I looked into DIY’ing my invites, and the packages you could buy just didn’t meet my standards, and printing them at home wasn’t going to meet my standards either. I searched and searched online for other paper companies/invitation companies/etc, and I realized making a nice invitation the way I wanted wasn’t going to save a WHOLE lot of money, and it was going to use up a LOT of time, so we opted to purchase invites and save money in other areas.

Here’s a helpful article on saving money in other areas of your wedding:
http://www.ehow.com/how_6033557_lower-wedding-costs.html

I bought kits and dressed them up. I actually had people comment on how nice my invites looked.
having a laserjet printer was critical because it prints REALLY well. However, if you don’t get an especially intricate design, you can always have staples or office depot run the invites through their copiers to get a sturdy printing job.

My DIY Kits were somewhat plain – just white with a lasercut design at the top that said "LOVE" — it was real pretty & fancy lasercut. What I did to dress it up was: found paper in one of our wedding colors (cranberry red) and cut it to sit behind the plain invite so you could see the red through the lasercut design (made it really stand out). I used double sided photo squares to stick the two pieces together. I found a ribbon-hole punch and fed a ribbon in our other wedding color (black) through the two sheets of paper and added a self-stick rhinestone where the ribbon went behind the papers.
OH, and 50% off 1 item coupons for AC Moore & Michaels were GREAT. Ask family, friends & co-workers to bring you theirs and you’ll have all the kits you need at HALF PRICE!!!

I did DIY invitations and they turned out beautifully. We started with a DIY package. Then we used a leaf punch and did a small leaf cut out on the bottom corner of the envelope. But, I did a lot to make them look nicer.
Then we lined the envelope with patterned deep red paper (so that you could see the small leaf impression).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v629/Hasbrown42/WeddingStuff003.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v629/Hasbrown42/WeddingStuff002.jpg

One of my bridesmaids used calligraphy to address the envelopes.
We bought a monogrammed wax seal and used it to close the outer envelope.
After we affixed the stamps to them, I put them in a package and sent it to my mother. Then my mother took the package to Romance, Arkansas (close to where she lives) and had them postmarked from "Romance."

In the end, it probably cost less than $100 to send out roughly 80 invitations. And they looked amazing. And they didn’t look like something that you could just order online and send out. It was obvious that we had put a lot of care into creating special invitations for our guests!

Have you tried etsy.com? They have people on there that make invitations (similar to what we did) but aren’t as expensive as buying from a huge company.

Oh, I do too!

I guess it depends on how many guests you plan to invite. You don’t want to be hand-making hundreds of invitations! I only had to make seven, thank goodness, which I did using some scrapbooking paper. Didn’t make it anything too fancy, just A4 size, printed on a laser colour printer.

They were pretty simple, but I used nice font, and told a little "story" about how we were puzzles with a piece missing, and now the puzzle is complete! I guess it can also depend on how formal or informal your wedding is. Our wedding is such a casual affair that my stepfather will be wearing shorts (nice ones, not work-type clothes), and my sister has been told she’s not allowed to come if she isn’t wearing flip flops! (A family joke, at my poor sister’s expense!)

But if you love paper and crafty stuff as much as it sounds like you do, I think you’d relish making them and do a fantastic job, so if you have the time and the patience, go for it!

The DIY kits worked for me — but it is a big time commitment to print them all if you have a large number, and also uses the printer ink.

All my guests returned their RSVP cards, and I think its the best way to know who is coming.