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Mrs. Powder Puff, Chicago Age and Occupation: 25, Preschool Teacher Fiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Career Services Engagement Date: May, 2008 Wedding Date: July, 2009 Blogging Since: November 12, 2008 Venue: Outdoor ceremony, banquet hall reception About Me: I am your typical Midwestern girl attempting to plan a sane, budget-friendly, fun wedding to the man of my dreams. I love shoes, laughing at “Platinum Weddings”, crafts, inspiration boards, candy, and basically anything I can DIY. While weddings can certainly be all-consuming, I honestly can’t wait until the ceremony is over and I can finally call Mr. Powder Puff my husband!
About Mrs. Powder Puff

The Almighty Invitation Budget

May 14th, 2009 @ 8:29 am by Mrs. Powder Puff

Before Mr. Powder Puff and I were even engaged, I never pictured myself making my own invitations. EVER. In fact, I considered myself a girl who didn’t even really care what the invitations looked like.

That was until I started reading wedding blogs. And oh! What gloriously beautiful invitation suites! They had letterpress! Calligraphy! Gold fairy dust! Aaaaaand they were completely out of our budget.

Enter DIY invitations. Now, there are times when you can buy invitations for much cheaper than you can make them. For us, it was definitely more cost-effective to make them. And in the interest of helping you, dear readers, make that all-important decision if you’re wavering on the edge of the DIY canyon, I’ve decided to disclose our invite budget.



Here’s how the costs broke down. All of our paper products were from Paper Source, except for the A7 envelopes, which were from Envelopemall.com.

  • Paper: $47
  • Envelopes: $45
  • Stamps: $60 (we hand-delivered quite a few)

Total: $152 for 100 invitations

Hours and hours of my life, not to mention, my sanity: priceless

Yes, making our invitations definitely made me a little cuckoo. At times I even considered ditching the whole thing and giving our guests a klassy wedding invite phone call. But in the end, it was a fantastic feeling to throw *ahem*… I mean, lovingly place the whole bunch in the mailbox and send them on their way.

So, in the end, was it worth it? Yes. Would I do it again? Absolutely.

Did DIY save you money, or was it a labor of love?

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26 Responses to “The Almighty Invitation Budget”

1.
Miss Gloss
Bee
Miss Gloss (message)  1,053 posts, Bumble bee

We DIY’d our invites and I love them with my whole heart. But I’m pretty sure I could have found a more cost effective solution - we spent about $300/$350 including stamps. We have lots of extra (and mess-ups) but I think we are only sending out about 70 invites!

 
2.
FutureMrs_S
Member
FutureMrs_S (message)  20 posts, Newbee

Ummm…gonna go with a little of both. I wound up sending about 120 invites and I designed them and had them printed and cut and then assembled them myself. But honestly it wasn’t really about the price (okay…a little bit of it was) it was really about the fact that I couldnt find anything that I liked and that would work with our color scheme and general feel of the party (Fushia, Navy Blue and Pola dots!! Party, Party, Party) In the end I did wind up spending less monetarily but more in time but I have something I can be proud of (Except for the TWO typos on the RSVP postcard I didnt see until I sent it out…AARRGHHH!!!)

 
3.
TheMapChick
Member
TheMapChick (message)  119 posts, Blushing bee

I DIY’d my invitations since I only needed like 15 to invite about 23 people. (We’re have a very intimate wedding.) I could have had just 15 made for me by an Etsy vendor I guess but designing them myself gave me the freedom to use the extra cardstock I ordered for coordinating programs, menu cards, favor tags and fun “Do Not Disturb” door hangers for our OOT guests. I really got into the whole process and so far it has been the most fun project in my planning process.

 
4.
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Member
MS Girl (message)  11 posts, Newbee

Definitely feeling your pain on this one. I decided to DIY our invites because I couldn’t find any in our budget that I really loved. It’s turned into a labor of love at this point but they should be done and in the mail first thing in the morning- I can’t wait!

 
5.
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Member
bluedec (message)  109 posts, Blushing bee

I envy all of you who have the time to do anything yourselves. We simply don’t have the time. Yesterday, we received samples from Bella Figura and absolutely love one of the invitations. It will be challenging enough for us to find the time to put all the different pieces for each invite together.

 
6.
teeleaf22
Member
teeleaf22 (message)  288 posts, Helper bee

I would love to DIY invites, I simply do not know where to start.

 
7.
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Member
midwestelle (message)  135 posts, Blushing bee

I have some DIY projects in mind that I’d like to do because I want to be crafty. The invites, however, are a DIY project I’m going to do simply because of the cost.

It will be interesting, when that project gets going… I hope I don’t go crazy! Hopefully we won’t need more than 50 invites, so that shouldn’t be too bad, right?

 
8.
Lexatron
Member
Lexatron (message)  330 posts, Helper bee

I’m in the process of DIYing my invites, primarily because anything within my budget was just plain boring. It doesn’t help that we’re sending out nearly 275 invitations. I hope that it turns in to a “labor of love” soon - right now the project is just overwhelming.

 
9.
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Member
saraplusmike (message)  17 posts, Newbee

I did a little of both. I picked up a great invitation suite at Target, found some great scrapbooking paper to line the envelopes with. I love them. All in all, they will cost 1.50/invitations for 100 (no stamps yet).

 
10.
LatteLove
Hostess
LatteLove (message)  4,094 posts, Honey bee

Wow you did yours very cheaply! I guess what really added to our price was the pocketfolds…Great job with your budget!

 
11.
GeorgiaPeach
Member
GeorgiaPeach (message)  55 posts, Worker bee

That is great! I am plannin on DIYing (if the man ever proposes!) but we have already estimated the guest list and it is probably going to be 600+!!! I’m gonna go crazy!

 
12.
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Member
sweetkate (message)  176 posts, Blushing bee

I did a mix. I ordered my invites from Davids Bridal and they didn’t quite turn out the way I wanted… there is about a 2″ space before the wording even starts on the invitation card! So since I just learned how to emboss I am going to emboss a trio of hearts at the top to give it a little something. Overall I am happy with the way they look now and I’m glad I didn’t attempt to DIY the entire thing. I think it would have been a disaster!

 
13.
LLauRRa
Hostess
LLauRRa (message)  843 posts, Busy bee

Hahaha!

I could’t find the color envelopes I wanted in our price range so I decided to DIY the envelopes for our Save the dates… I think I’d rather gag myself with a spoon than do this for the invites. We will be BUYING them for the invites.

 
14.
Mrs. DG
Hostess
Mrs. DG (message)  4,227 posts, Honey bee

We did ours for under $2 per invite (and probably 20+ hours of work!) We are getting tons of compliments from our friends… but the best compliment that I got yesterday was, “your invitations are just so YOU!”

What more could we want than that?!

 
15.
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Member
Miss sea spray (message)  94 posts, Worker bee

wow - where is this picture taken? the DIY stores I have gone to are not this impressive!!

 
16.
Lillindy
Hostess
Lillindy (message)  4,264 posts, Honey bee

I ordered my invites before I found Weddingbee, but if I could go back and find WB sooner and all this inspiration, I would have without a doubt tried to DIY mine!

 
17.
Bee Icon
Bee
Mrs. Quiche (message)  2,183 posts, Buzzing bee

Your invites are INCREDIBLE and I hope you concentrate more on that than pain & agony they caused you :) We DIY’d ours & I wouldn’t have it any other way!!

 
18.
Tstew
Member
Tstew (message)  109 posts, Blushing bee

I wish I had time to DIY my invites. I was in SHOCK because of the cost of my invitation. I was lucky because I was able to get them through Direct Buy but if not it would have been over 1,000.00!! DIY invite would definitely have saved ALOT of money.

 
19.
joyce
Member
joyce (message)  201 posts, Helper bee

Our DIY invites didn’t save us any money, but it was definitely a labor of love. I’ve lost track of how many prototypes were made (and thrown away) and countless hours of designing, printing, cutting, gluing…I’m very happy with them, but it’s so. much. work.

FI is glad to have the dining table back as well.

 
20.
MightySapphire
Hostess
MightySapphire (message)  2,608 posts, Sugar bee

It turns out that I could have gotten really nice letterpress invites for the cost of what I DIYed. I hate that. I wish I would have had them made. Because making them myself took a TON of time and energy! In retrospect I would have outsourced.

 
21.
mrspaetz
Member
mrspaetz (message)  1,707 posts, Bumble bee

i spent more than i wished because i had to buy the ‘gear’ like a paper slicer/scorer thingy and other tools.

but i LOVE my invites, gave me a great chance to bond with my helpers, and hey, i can always ebay the craft stuff after that ;)

 
22.
Bee Icon
Bee
Mrs. Sushi (message)  969 posts, Busy bee

I actually did save money on my passport STDs, although they were also a labor of love!

While I didn’t spend the outragous $600 price tag that seems to come with invitations, I did spend around $200, which I don’t really consider saving. I mean, sure I could have done my invites for $50 or so, but they looked waaaay better (if I do say so myself :) ) than if I would’ve went the “cheaper” route. So I would say that my actual invites were more labor of love and less saving.

 
23.
Bee Icon
Bee
Miss Bruschetta (message)  5,553 posts, Bee Keeper

Definitely don’t trust myself enough to DIY the invites…but through Etsy, we found an extremely talented designer to help keep it (somewhat) ;-) reasonable!

 
24.
Guest Icon
Guest
Heatehr

I’m in the process of doing my invitations and I love it!! I spent about $400 on everything (paper cutter, stamps, and xyron incl) but I have all the necessary pieces to make invitations, RSVP cards, direction cards, place cards, table numbers, menus, programs and favor pieces. I’ll even have enough decorative paper left over to design the thank you cards!

 
25.
Member Icon
Member
Miss2Mrs (message)  56 posts, Worker bee

amazing-thanks for posting the information

 
26.
alohababy28
Member
alohababy28 (message)  192 posts, Blushing bee

For me it is absolutely both. Papercrafting is one of my big hobbies, so I had to DIY them. Our design trials have been a bit more costly than I thought, but we have almost all the supplies now, and we’ve worked out a way to save a ton of money on paper. (I highly suggest several trials before making the final decision). BONUS- it’s now labor day weekend, and we paper ladies know what that means- MAJOR sales on paper at all the major craft stores! Our task tonight is to collect all the paper we need for the wedding invites (though we dont need to send them for another oh, six months) for the low low price of 6 pages for $1! Yay craft stores and your predictability- I mean, awesomeness!

 


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Mrs. Powder Puff Mrs. Powder Puff, Chicago Age and Occupation: 25, Preschool Teacher Fiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Career Services Engagement Date: May, 2008 Wedding Date: July, 2009 Blogging Since: November 12, 2008 Venue: Outdoor ceremony, banquet hall reception About Me: I am your typical Midwestern girl attempting to plan a sane, budget-friendly, fun wedding to the man of my dreams. I love shoes, laughing at “Platinum Weddings”, crafts, inspiration boards, candy, and basically anything I can DIY. While weddings can certainly be all-consuming, I honestly can’t wait until the ceremony is over and I can finally call Mr. Powder Puff my husband!
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