Wedding Invites

Back in May, I wrote about how I’d found my ideal invites at Michael’s. They were cheap, the colours were appropriate and they looked good enough.

Well now, a few months later, I’ve changed my mind on the whole invites-from-Michael’s thing. Yeah, they were cheap but they were also a bit boring and predictable. While I agree that it doesn’t make sense to spent a ton on stationary, I do think it’s okay to spend a bit to get something that suits your wedding and that, hopefully, makes people excited for it.

There is some truth behind the saying that the invite sets the tone for the invite. If you get a big, elaborate invite, you’re likely going to assume that the wedding will be a big, elaborate one. But if you get a plain, generic invite, well, you’re likely going to assume that the wedding will also be on the plain and generic side and no bride wants her guests to make that assumption about her wedding.

My mom has been sending invites to me that she and her friends have been getting and they almost all look the same. I’m all for simple but come on, there’s tons of ways to do “simple” that doesn’t involve black ink on heavy, plain white paper (and no, gluing a coloured ribbon doesn’t really personalize the invite).

Over the past few weeks I have seriously looked a hundreds of wedding invite designs, most in the low-to-mid-price range. There are lots of affordable options out there, including plenty of print-your-own styles so there’s really no excuse for boring invites.

In my next entry, I’ll highlight some of my favourite designs/designers that I came across on Etsy. But first, an invite “reality check”:

• Throw the idea of a 1$ invite; stamps along run over $1
  
• To keep it cheap, keep it simple: no pockets, no flaps, no ribbons, no jewels, no double-lined envelopes. Instead spend your money on an eye-catching, appropriate design
  
• Going with a postcard-style RSVP card is generally cheaper than a card and envelope combo (though trickier to print if you’re doing DIY printing)
  
• I’m going to dedicate a separate entry to DIY printing but for now remember that DIY printing doesn’t equal free; you still need to pay for paper and ink
  
• And before you get too attached to a DIY design, make sure you have whatever computer program is needed to print it (I’m amazed at the number of brides on bridal boards who don’t have Word so they can’t print many DIY templates)
  
• Sometimes it’s just plain worth it to spend the extra cash. For example, get your return address printed on your envelopes/RSVP postcards. Yeah, this can cost extra but it’s one of those things that’s worth the cost