Selfmade Wedding Invites?
- Started
- Last post
- 28 Responses
- dirtydesign
Debating designing/making my own wedding invites. Just wondering if anyone here has done it.
Does it save any money doing them yourself?
Seems like it has potential to be a headache. Invites, rsvp cards, rsvp envelopes, etc...
- PunchDouble0
im doing mines right now
it is a headache as in you have to be very satisfied with your own work and it's a lot of workbut its definitely saving us money
- How much time & effort is going into to your invites? How is it saving money?utopian
- Unless your hourly rate is $6.50 per hourutopian
- i have the ability to print them at work. and i spent my nights/weekends working on themPunchDouble
- MrNibs0
If you have the time I'd say try and tackle it yourself. You'll be happier with the results. Yes it saves money but you can also figure out what you want to print professionally and what you can do on your own. I spent a little money on the letterpress cards and die cut and made everything else myself.
If you're inviting 600 people to your wedding then you might want to reconsider comping up that much shit. But doing 150 or so is not that bad. Rent a bunch of movies and spend ur nights chopping shit up.
My invite:
- do you have any more pics by any chance? looks awesomePunchDouble
- Very niceismith
- eh. that's the exciting part. the rest is a bunch of informational crap.MrNibs
- More details..please? How'd you print/cut them? I am designing my sister's nowformed
- dirtydesign0
Nibs. Those are really nice.
Thanks for the info. I guess I'll have to see how much a 'good design' will cost us. Then get a quote from my NYC printers.
- utopian0
I am still try figure out how it saves money by designing the invites? Your hourly rates must be below minimum wage, and you must not have any billable work that could be done.
- dirtydesign0
by saving money i mean... if an invitation designer is gonna charge us 3 grand, maybe i could design them and print them for 500.
- dirtydesign0
Nibs. How much did you end up spending?
- formed0
How much are people spending here? I've seen most come in at a few hundred (DIY) with higher end ones with nice printing at a few grand.
I am designing some now but need to keep the costs down (sister's wedding).
- monospaced0
I've done a few wedding invites. Definitely a money-saver. They're on my site.
- Thanks! Had those bookmarked from another thread, great stuff! Were those letter press or self printed?formed
- Letterpress and/or offset lithomonospaced
- ali0
Suggestions:
- For cheaper printing; use standard sizes not custom ie. postcard, DL etc
- Make your own lino cut design (and paper) and stamp yourself,
make it something beautiful your guests would love to keep or frame.
- Use classic black and white, add colour with stickers, beads, ribbon etc
- jurassica0
I designed my own. The paper merchant we generally use gave me the paper for free (always worth checking out if they have any sheets that aren't selling at the end of a run). I had a friend who is an offset printer. I designed his wedding invitations for him, so he printed mine for free as long as i supplied the stock. Kept it simple on an ivory vellum printed in black. It looked beautiful. Cost me about $70 all up.
- MrNibs0
- I spent money on professional printed letterpress cards but I printed guides to do the die cutting my self. (the back card had some notches that would have added a die charge to the process)
- Picked the letterpress paper to match envelopes that I got online for cheap.
- Found a chocolate brown envelope enclosure that I built a custom die to alter the opening and just spent several nights cutting those out.
- For $30 bucks you can get embossing stamps that I used everywhere to make shit feel like it was professionally done. (FYI hand embossing dies are not the greatest, the table mounted ones work much better)
- Also did a lot of laser b/w printing for addressing, labeling, and table numbers.
- Used a label machine that applies adhesive to any kind of paper so I could use the paper I wanted.
- calculator0
I did my own invites, menus, order of service etc. I did it at the weekend in my spare time. I spent a long time on it, getting the design right and hand finishing everything. I'm glad I did it. You could argue that if I'd billed myself at my daily rate it would have cost a fortune, but that's not how it works.
Cost me about £100 in materials / printing. I wouldn't have been happy with anyone else doing it.
- jbasnight0
- not sure if it's selfmade but it's pretty brillantjbasnight
- i likes a lotcalculator
- Not_Just_Another0
Currently doing my own - will be very rewarding when finished, but is taking far longer than I'd have hoped.
I couldn't imagine having anyone else do them.
- ximeraLabs0
We designed our own invites and hand made them all, with and epson printer, gold string & ribbon, watercolour paint a custom stamp and a hot wax gun. It was a lot of work, but so worth it.
- iheartfun0
I did my friends and it only cost around $750. It really all depends on how much you wanna put into it
- formed0
Anyone care to share more DIY examples?
What do people think about letter press vs. foil stamping? I've always leaned towards the latter (we thinking of getting one master page/card done, then spray mounting the detail prints in a different paper for each piece of the wedding)
- megE0
I do them for friends and family (I've really only had one 'pill' of a couple) and do them as wedding gifts - so they only pay printing costs.
It makes me want to do my own for sure - I do think you save a ton of money!