Making your own wedding invitations...

Is this practical in any sort of way?! lol! I have no idea how much it would be to make them myself versus buying them. Looking somewhere around 50-75 people... Any other ideas would be great for a diy wedding favor etc. I love the idea of making something for my own wedding. lol Thanks!

I made all the paper stuff for our wedding. (including 100 invites).

It's very do-able, as long as you have time. They take awhile, but can be very rewarding. My MIL claims that our family is still talking about the wedding/invites/etc (I designed and DIY'ed a lot of stuff), to this day, and we were married over a year ago.

That's so wonderful! I def. have the time, we haven't picked a date or anything yet but I want to be well prepared. Do you have any pictures of your wedding invited?

I did our invites, escort cards, menus, and a few other random things. The invites took the longest, but they weren't too difficult. My DH helped. I think on 100 invites I spent $50-75 on supplies (and I bought all recycled paper so it was more expensive) and had enough leftover to make my other stuff for the wedding. Definitely cost effective, but if you don't have the time to do it then buying them is the way to go.

Lots of ways to do this! For my first daughter we cut cardstock to size, printed the wording on plain vellum, and simply attached at the top with a cordinating ribbon. Simple,classy, and easy.

For my second daughter we used photos, printed the wording right onto the photo. Very simple and not expensive at all.

Here's some examples:

wedding invitations By Rockmom

wedding invitations By Rockmom

Look in my gallery for more examples and do a seach of the site gallery, there are lots of items shared here that can help.

When my daughter got married two years ago we went to a paper store in Minnneapolis where they have tons of samples of diy invites and the all the papers you need. We found a style she liked and they showed us how to make them and what paper we would need. We made about 75 invites, 200 programs, 150 placecards, table names(words of love with definitions) and labels for favors (which were takeout boxes to fill at the candy buffet). We had a couple of days when friends and family helped with assembly and my daughter and I did the rest. My daughter also had coloring books printed for the kids at the wedding. We shopped carefully and bought some of the paper at a wholesale paper warehouse and ordered envelopes online. We not only saved money but had a unique design that we created. I also made Thank Yous for them with the leftover papers.

I made all my own invites, reception cards, reply cards directions and address labels. For 45 invitations I paid about $60 for all the supplies-it would have been less but I used a little flamingo charm from a bead store on each invite. The programs were around $60 as well for 70.

I did my own wedding invites but they were all printed on my pc without embellies and it was dead easy!

I had such a GREAT time doing a lot of my own things for MY wedding that I made a business out of it. I was an event planner for a corporation but after so many compliments (and a very supportive husband) I got the confidence to start my own business.

There are some programs to do your own invitations completly from scratch or even easier get the a DIY kit from M's, J's, or HL and just add some personal touches to make it more "custom".

For favors, Candy Buffets are really popular right now. I rent out and set up the materials for the buffets for even non DIY weddings....but they are so easy to do yourself. Get about 8 to 10 (for your guest count that should be plenty) cute apocathary and candy jars and find all kinds of goodies in your wedding colors. I just toured the Jelley Belly factory in California and OMG they have evey color you can think of...M&M and Hershey kisses, too. You can also make your own candy bar wrappers and have them in your colors as part of the buffe. Alot of brides also use them in the out of towner (OOT) bags to leave at the hotel where they might have a block of rooms. You can make your own water bottle wrappers, too.

There are a lot of DIY bride blogs and websites, do a google search. Feel free to PM me and I can forward you to some very helpful sites.

Tiffany

I have to say that I'm very proud of the things I made for the wedding. Although a few of them I don't have pics of unfortunately due to time constraints and stress!!!

I made: the table numbers, rehearsal dinner invites, escort card tree, flower girl basket, homemade pumpkin bread (I baked myself) in flower pots tied with raffia and wax paper, and so much more!

But my pride and joy were my wedding invites (in my gallery). I still get compliments on them! I don't know if I would've done it again though, it was stressful and very frustrating at times!!!

Thanks soooo much ladies!! All this feed back is wonderful!! I got online last night and ordered some free samples from davids so I can get some card ideas. I did a search on google but it didn't work out too well, maybe im not searching the right way. lol

Just posted some pictures of the things we made for my daughter's wedding a couple of years ago so you can see what we did. Just click on my gallery.

I did my own two years ago. It was alot of work, but I was so glad I did. Everyone loved them. I did a pcketfold envelope with several sheets since I had out of town guests. I also did save the date magnets. I dont have a picture, but I will suggest checking out the knot .com forums if you havent already there are tons of diy-ers on there with great ideas. Good Luck!

Thanks so much I'll have to check it out!! I can't wait to do all these things!! Good thing the wedding isn't for a while! lol! Gotta have time to do it all!

• Octopie Said:

i was thinking this is cool- but so unreal for weddings here.... the small ones are like 250-300 people... :-P

haha! No way would I ever make that many! lol!! My max is 150 but I know it won't be that many at all. Most of the ppl we are inviting are practically whole entire families so there won't be a million cards for ever other lone couple. lol

Hi there! Doing your own invitations, is yes, time consuming, but they will be uniquely yours, which I love.

Try sticking to a common theme/design & color palette throughout your wedding; I'm helping one of my best friends out right now and she decided she wanted a fleur-de-lis theme with green and brown for colors. This makes things much easier. Also decide on one, maybe two fonts that you like that go well together.

If you want to make an investment, the Epic 6 Letterpress machine is SOOOO cool! It's like embossing, but it's debossing and only does one side, so it's perfect for cards and invitations. I would suggest doing it without the ink... I haven't mastered that part yet myself with the machine! (it's pretty messy!). They also make custom letterpress plates (you can PM me for website)and they already have wedding themed plates available for purchase.

Good luck and I hope this helps!

Oooh! That's so awesome! I doubt I'd use that machine, and just stick with a simple lo of the cards (green and white) and use a cuttlebug for the embossing. My biggest step is finding what style I like!! Thanks soooo much for all the feedback!

• Kitty_wOlf Said:

Each person doesn't get an invite. 250-300 people is realistically 125-150 invites, but probably not even that many.

Making 250-300 favors wouldn't even be too tough either. Those were the faster of my projects.

speaking from a person who used to work in a party supply store, and one of our major sellers were the invites, it's definately cheaper to make them. why? well usually, for the major companies (which I seem to have forgotten this moment, sorry), and most others, ordering less than 100 is going to cost you MORE. why? I don't know. something about the printers only print in certain numbers, and below 100 they'll just have to waste paper and stuff. something like that. what will approx 75 cost you? if you get an "eh" card, maybe $75. a nicer one about $150.

plus, you don't get the same kind of feel as a handmade one. mostly, they are flat. if you do get a folded one, you can only print on the inside, nothing on the sides. to get the ink to be raised is another $25 or so. everything is an added expense. the envelope flap, on the inside, to be done in color is an extra cost. so is colored ink, ribbons and the save-the-date/rsvp cards. I used to ring up wedding invites @ $200+ easy for 100 invites.

I just helped my friend make 30 bridal shower invites (they are in my gallery). all the supplies, the papers, mosaic tiles, ribbon and glue came to about $50. (with extras just in case) in between eating and playing with the baby, it took us about 5 hours. from start to finish. printing on vellum (atleast the bazil basics brand) wasn't hard. and you can do whatever you want!

(just make sure to have a sample well made and measured so you can buy your paper. you can always get that on sale too!)