Encouraged by my dear husband’s post on How to Save Money on Weddings last week, I’m going to dive deeper into wedding invitations and in particular, whether you should buy or create your own. For many of us budget folks, this is one of the easiest ways to save some money but obviously, we need to decide whether we have the time and skill to create a wedding invitation. In addition, ask yourself these questions:
- Are you or your fiancée a creative person?
- Do you (and your fiancée) usually enjoy hand crafting?
- Could your siblings or close friends help?
- Do you have a good sense of design, especially creating something from scratch?
- Do you have a tight budget on wedding invitations?
If most of your answers to the questions listed above are “yes”, you are a good candidate to create your own wedding invitations, and in the process save about 30% to 40% than ordering from stores.
When my husband and I went through the list of answers two years ago, it was crystal clear that it wasn’t for us! Both of us are “artistically-challenged” and we had no idea which kind of invitations we wanted to get. Instead, we hired someone overseas to design an exclusive card for us. The total cost was about $300 for the cards including design fee.
Remember that it is important to discuss this with your fiancée. Sometimes, you might not enjoy DIY or hand crafting but your significant other might and vice versa. One of my friend actually had a similar experience recently. She wanted to just order some cards online, but her fiancée wanted to design their own cards. It took them about a month to finalize the design, color, material, size and content. They had a few minor arguments about the design (one preferred simple design while the other wanted a traditional style). We recently received their cards and it turned out quite nice because the card represent the personality of the couple! Another example is my co-worker. She said she had the design of her wedding invitation card since she was in college. So, the decision to her was easy! She had her sisters and a few close girlfriends helped her on the task, and her graphic designer background didn’t hurt either.
It is also not a bad idea to just order the generic cards online or order through the paper stores to get a semi-custom card. It will save you some time on this part of wedding preparation. The cost will be fixed too. Just keep that in mind: Don’t over spend on the cards! Do you keep all your friends’ wedding invitations? If the answer is no or you don’t even keep them after you mail back the RSVP card, you know what they will do to yours! I suggest allocating 1.2% to 2% of your total wedding budget to be your invitation budget. You have way too many things on your list that will tempt you to overspend the original allocation.
Few other reminders if you create your own:
- Size: Does size matter? Yes, it matters to your bucks. Different size of the cards will cost differently when it comes time to mailing them out. Make sure you get the right size before you cut all your cards and envelopes. You also should watch the total weight too by making sure that the paper you choose aren’t too thick and heavy.
- Sampling: Buy a smaller quantity of the materials at first to see the color and quality first before you jump in to buy bulk. Don’t be afraid to try some other material and colors for the sampling to get more ideas.
- Enjoy the Process: You may have doubts in the middle of the whole DIY process but it’s all worth it! Try to make this as part of the good memory for your wedding preparation no matter what happens. Appreciate the help of your close friends and siblings as well as everyone that is helping you.
Few other reminders for overall invitation preparation:
- Prepare at least 10 to 20 extra: you never know when you will need them even if you already set a pretty accurate guest list. Also, you might want to keep one (or a few) as part of your wedding album.
- Pre-number your RSVP cards: I learned this from my friend. To simplify the process of receiving and tracking, put a number on the back of your RSVP cards and log them into an excel sheet. When you receive the cards back, you can just find the number and count the attendance and food preference.
Hope this helps and remember to have fun the whole time!
Editor’s Note: If you don’t believe that persistence and consistency is key to success, you are wrong. After 2 years of posting regularly and discussing the possibility of a guest post, my wife surprised me with this amazing article. Please let her know how great this piece is via the comment section on the blog.
