Wedding Blog

I love paper. I love different colors, patterns, textures and weights. I buy scrapbooking paper because it’s pretty, without ever really needing it for one of my scrapbook pages. (And those six for $0.96 sales at Jo-Ann’s are hard to pass up!) When it came to wedding invitations, I never really considered any other option but making them myself. I wanted to experiment with different papers and try my hand at designing them on Adobe Photoshop Elements. (Elements is great version of Photoshop for people who either lack the money to pay for the full version of Photoshop or don’t need all of the bells and whistles the pros need. If you want to try your hand at Photoshop, Elements is great entry-level software. It costs less than $100 and you can get a free trial here.)

My first step in designing the invites was deciding on the paper. I had grand dreams of doing pocket fold invites because I like how they look, but in reality, I didn’t need them. With our ceremony and reception in the same place and the vast majority of our guests not needing overnight accommodations, I didn’t need a pocket to hold all the extra information cards commonly held in the pockets of said pocket folds. The extra cost of postage and paper weren’t sitting well with me either, making it that much easier for me to justify not doing them.

I started to search online and in invitation catalogs for designs and styles that I liked.

I decided that a simple, one-sided 5″x7″ invitation card would do the trick. And with an 8.5″ x11″ sheet of paper, I could get two invites per sheet. For RSVP cards, I wanted to do a 4-bar sized card because I have a weird obsession with tiny envelopes, and that’s the smallest that will go through the mail. The card would fold over because I thought a one-panel card in the envelope made it seem too empty, and I like how the extra space inside a folded card would allow guests to write us a note if they so desired.

Knowing the sizes, I could figure out how much paper I would need to make 100 invites. I would need about 50 sheets for the invites and 50 for the RSVPs, since I could print two of those on one sheet, too. If I used the same paper for making direction cards for those need it, table number signs, and programs, as well, I figured I would need at least 175 sheets total. I immediately looked at PaperSource. Ever since I first visited one in Chicago a few years ago, I always thought they would be the place to go for wedding invite paper supplies. I was hesitant to order because viewing the colors online made me a bit uncertain if they would be right shade. Since there isn’t a store anywhere near me in Pittsburgh, I asked my future sister-in-law to pick me up a swatch book at the store close to where she lives in Washington, DC.

When I looked through the swatch book, none of the greens were the right shade. Moss was too dark and Leaf and Sage were too light. However, I did fall completely head over heels for the color, weight and texture of the Luxe White. It had an elegant feel in a slight off-white shade. It was perfect! (You may remember Miss Lemonade gushing about the fabulous Luxe paper she used for her STDs.)

Of course, nothing every quite works out as planned, right? Paper Source recently made some changes to its Luxe line by swapping out the white paper I love with a recycled variety called Luxe Fino White. I emailed Paper Source customer service to find out if the Fino was similar in color, weight and texture. I was told that it was a truer shade of white and had a more smooth finish. Darn!

I could still purchase Luxe White from Papers-Papers, but to buy what I needed, I was looking at over $120 plus shipping just for paper. That seemed a little too much to me, so I reluctantly came to the conclusion that I might as well just use a plain white cardstock.

I went to Jo-Ann’s to see what they had and was disappointed. The weight of the white cardstock wasn’t thick enough to support a single-panel invitation card and I just wasn’t happy with it. They had a linen textured white in their 12″x12″ scrapbooking supplies, but I know from experience an inkjet printer doesn’t print crisply on the linen. Still walking around the store and trying to think outside the box, a light bulb went off in my head. I thought, ‘Isn’t artist sketch paper thicker and doesn’t it have a slight texture?’ I had to check it out, so I went to the art supply aisle. Sketch and drawing paper wasn’t what I thought it was. It was too smooth. But I did find this:

Strathmore Watercolor paper in their 300 Series (yellow) which is 140 lb. weight and comes 12 sheets to a tablet for $5.99, and Student Watercolor Pad (white) which is 90 lb. weight and comes 15 sheets to a tablet for $3.99. Both are acid-free.

The watercolor paper had an amazing weight and texture and the color was the slight off-white color I loved.

I didn’t know if I could run the paper through an ink jet printer, so I bought one of each (using 40% off coupons, of course!) and took it home to try it out. I held the paper from the student pad next to my swatch book sample of the Luxe White and could not believe how close the match was in both color and texture. To tell you the truth, I think it’s the exact same paper.

Since the paper in the pads is 9″x12″, I had to cut it down to 8.5″x11″ so it would fit in my printer. Sure enough, it worked great! I did learn that you have to print on the front side with the most texture. (The back side is a little more smooth and the ink bled.)

I liked how my invite looked on the heavier, more textured paper, but knew that using the same weight for my RSVP and directions would jump my postage over the one-ounce and $0.42 mark. I decided to use the 140lb. for the invite card and the 90 lb. for the other components.

For a whole week, I stopped at a Michael’s and Jo-Ann’s on my way home from work, armed with 40% off coupons, to pick up enough pads of watercolor paper to complete my invitations. I picked up a few extra pads for table signage and for the programs. In total, the paper cost me less than $50.

Have you come across any suitable and more cost-effective substitutions while working on any of your DIY projects?