DIY Wedding Stationery 101
Wedding stationery is one area where costs can creep up on you & suddenly you’re spending a bundle. It also happens to be one of my favorite wedding areas to DIY. You don’t have to spend a fortune to deliver beautiful wedding stationery.
DON’T FORGET TO FACTOR IN THE COST OF POSTAGE. IT CAN BE BRUTAL!
“According to wedding industry survey site theweddingreport.com, the average price for 150 invitations and response cards is $245. Factor in save-the-dates ($114), menu cards ($114), programs ($108), thank-you cards ($92) and place cards ($77) for an average grand total of $750 (before postage),” – BridalGuide.com
With the average cost of wedding stationery ringing in at $750 BEFORE POSTAGE. Stationery is a category you can grab major savings.
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DIY Wedding Stationery: An Introduction
LCI Paper has a great article explaining how to get the best results when making your own wedding stationery. I recommend you read the full article but the main takeaway is their four steps to choosing the right paper. This comes down to:
- Printing
- Invitation Style
- Postage
- Preference
I’ll give you all a quick run through of these four points in my wedding (more detailed post to come).
- Printing – I purchased a color inkjet printer
- All bulk printing I used my everyday B&W laser printer
- All bulk printing I used my everyday B&W laser printer
- Invitation Style – The invitations were fairly elaborate (see photos). I made an invitation suite with layered invitations, inserts, & RSVP. A mix of light-medium weight cardstock & vellum.
- Postage – Invitation suite required extra postage & we included return postage for RSVPs
- Invitation: $0.50 [standard] + $0.21 [non-machineable charge] = $0.92/each
- RSVP: $0.50 [standard] = $0.50/each
- Preference – The invitations were meant to look formal & because the guest count was low the extra postage cost was not a deal breaker.
- If I had to mail 200 invitations + RSVP cards I probably would have skipped some of the embellishments to save on that USPS ‘non-machineable’ charge.
Make sure to use your Top 2 Wedding Savings Tools & let’s cut some costs! {Ebates + Rewards Credit Card}
DIY Wedding Stationery: Invitation Templates
If you are going to DIY your wedding invitations then you will save yourself a lot of time & energy finding a pre-made template. These days you can find printable templates everywhere! Find a basic design that you like & then customize it!
For our wedding invitations, I used a FREE template from Cards & Pockets.
I added an awful lot to personalize our invitations & make them fit our theme to a T. That being said, the template did save me a ton of time figuring out fonts, spacing, wording, etc. not to mention…it was FREE {You can also check out templates on Download & Print}.
These websites offer paid options as well if you want an entire printable stationery suite! All around a good resource but you can always look at more premium site such as:
Next up, choosing the right paper!
DIY Wedding Stationery: Cardstock
For our invitations, I used Recollections cardstock. Their ‘Shimmer White Gold’ cardstock for the invitation itself (GORGEOUS!) and a variety of colored paper packs for the inserts & pocket.
I highly recommend Recollections cardstock but their paper isn’t the cheapest out there. It would fall somewhere in-between budget & premium so if stationery is not one of your wedding priorities I have some budget options as well.
If you decide on off-brand cardstock you will save even more but, whenever you opt for SUPER budget products, make sure you READ REVIEWS & for wedding stationery keep in mind the weight & finish you’re looking for.
DIY Wedding Stationery: Envelopes
Envelopes are definitely a place you can SAVE!
Purchase budget-friendly envelopes & add your own envelope liners. You can use patterned paper/cardstock, book pages, music sheets, the list goes on.
I printed out some text from Cinderella on plain copy paper & then stained them for an aged, vintage look. (You can do this with watered down paint, coffee, or tea!)
I love the look of square flap invitations but pick an envelope design that fits your vision. Use my FREE Template along with some A7 & A1 Envelopes to make beautiful invitation & RSVP liners.
Take the money you save on envelopes & put it towards one of your Top 3!
Comments
These are very useful tips and I bet would save a lot of money. weddings aren’t cheap but these are great ways to save!
Author
Thank you, Vanessa! Stationery is expensive in general…especially for special events. Making your own saves a ton of money & makes the event that much more personal 🙂
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