Wedding Blog

Next up in our “Real Bee Budgets” series is invitations! Weddingbee has seen a great mix of invitations over the years. Some bees have commissioned artists and stationers to handle the entire invitation process, some have hired graphic designers and completed the assembly at home, and some have DIYed their invites completely!  Up first today are invitations that were either entirely professional, or semi-DIY.

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Miss Stiletto’s Invitations

# of Invitations: 80
Total Cost: $447 (including postage)
Cost Per Invitation: $5.58

Invitation front & back:

Invitation envelopes:

Invitation inside:

Invitation response:

Invitation souret:
“I knew that fancy letterpress and other high-end options probably weren’t in my budget, and I’m not that much of a DIY bride that I thought I could pull these off myself, so I found a great designer - Plush Paper - who worked with what I wanted and what our budget was.”

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Mrs. Quiche’s Invitations

# of Invitations: 60
Cost Total: $108.95

Cost Breakdown:

Cost Per Invitation: $1.81

Invitation:

Envelope:

Belly band:

Invitation set:

“I worked with an amazing Etsy designer, Karen of mtkdesigns, to design our invitation suite, programs, and menus. If you are thinking of DIYing your invites, but need help with the graphics, this is THE WAY TO GO! We went back and forth until things were exactly to our liking and then she emailed us the file as a .jpeg and .pdf! Easy! I printed these out on our awesome color copier at work (with approval, bien sur!), then the girls and I went to town assembling them.”

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Mrs. Avocado’s Invitations

# of Invitations: 275
Total Cost: $1,011

Price Breakdown:

• All paper and supplies for invites - $150
• Istock Graphic - $35
• Calligraphied quote by Laura Hooper - $25
• Calligraphy kit for envelopes - $22
• RSVP Postcards - $166.80
• Postage-$322
• Photos - $290.08

Cost per Invitation: $3.68

Photo inserts:

RSVP postcard inserts:

Booklet binding:

Back page with pocketfold:

Pro shot of inside pages of booklet:

“DIY 6 page inkjet printed booklet style invitation with sewn binding and pocketfold on the back page… The $1000+ price tag makes me choke when I look at it, but the cost per invite helps me breathe again. Mormon weddings function a little bit differently, most couples send out invitations to people they know will never come just so their friends can hang up the included picture on their fridge. We could have saved a very large amount of money by sending out 75 actual invitations and 200 less expensive “announcements”. Postage came out to $0.85 but I really got killed on photos. I made a mistake when ordering and they came out costing almost $1.00 each.”

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Mrs. Cherry Pie’s Invitations

# of Invitations: 94
Total Cost: $1300 for entire suit
Cost per Invitation: $13.74

Invitation:

RSVP:

“Suite details: Custom letterpress design tri-fold enclosure featuring maps and details with inset invitation, RSVP card, pressed return envelope, lined outer envelope pressed with address, and custom sashes. Thank you notes were also included in suite, but I’ve subtracted them from the pricing here since this is purely invitations.

We definitely could have saved money on our invitations. But I lusted after letterpress. I had to have it. And it was all too easy to succumb to temptation because a friend of ours runs her own letterpress studio, Twin Ravens Press. Kristin worked diligently with us to create a completely customized invitation suite. Of course, the more we worked, the further we fell into the rabbit hole.

I loved the most expensive things - a tri-color design, square paper, tri-fold enclosure, pressed envelopes - and convinced myself that because this was a one-time thing, I wanted to go big rather than going home. Now, I’m not saying that I regret my decisions. I absolutely LOVED our invitations… they just came with a big price tag which, for letterpress, was actually quite low.

Still, when I think about them, it does make me somewhat sad to know that most of them have probably long-since been recycled. But for those who will treasure them, we know we’ve supplied a memorable and unique keepsake.”

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Mrs. Hot Cocoa’s Invitations

# of Invitations: $250
Total Cost: $733
Total cost per invitation: $2.93

Invitation cover:

Invitation & RSVP card:

Invitation set:

“Our invitations were a labor of love and a combination of our cultures. We chose a laser cut design of love birds and cherry blossoms as an allusion to the art of papercutting, which happens to be an art form significant to both the Jewish and Chinese cultures. The tri-fold invitation has panels in English, Chinese, and Hebrew. I did the typesetting for the English invitation panel, Wedding Image did the Chinese panel, and Cohen Printing did the Hebrew panel. Wedding Image did the thermography, lasercutting, and assembly.

The invitations were probably our favorite wedding detail. It reflected our personalities and cultures perfectly, and captured the multi-cultural vibe of the event itself.”

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Mrs. Kiwi’s Invitations

# of Invitations: 125
Total Cost: $184
Cost per Invitation: $1.47

Invitation:

“Invitations were also something I semi-cared about, but we couldn’t afford pricey letterpress, or anything like that. We decided to go with Invitation Consultants, and found a perfect invitation to cover our needs!

I seriously loved our invitations so much because they were just perfect, and so nontraditional. The total for 125 invitations, and reply cards: $184.00. I have no regrets about this choice.”

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Mrs. Peep Toe’s Invitations

# of Invitations: 50
Total Cost: $400
Cost per invite: $8 plus postage (eek, I had no idea I spent that much per invite)

What we got: a one color letterpressed invite and RSVP with eco-friendly, chocolate brown envelopes.

Invitation:

Invitation set:

“Somehow Mr. Peep fell in love with letterpressed invites, and I jokingly said I’d try for one day to find someone near our budget. Somehow after a day of sending out a ton of emails, I found someone on Etsy who could do the whole thing almost within our budget. She said she was new to invite design so she would reduce the design fee. Unfortuntatly, the design process took a very long time (we lagged a bit) and the letterpress fee went up with the new year. After almost scrapping the whole thing, we were able to work a deal with the designer and letterpress printer. I still think Jazyrain is a great deal for letterpressed invites and I loved our invites. But really, I can’t believe that we spent so much on these. I am kinda embarrassed by our price per invite. It was our unanticipated splurge. “