Wedding Blog

As promised, here are a few tips and tricks I picked up on our invitation making journey!

Supply and Cost Breakdown:

We made 75 invitations total. 60 were mailed out, 10 or so were misprinted (Goccoing is hard!) and we kept a few for photos and such!

All items are from PaperSource unless otherwise noted.

• 4bar flat cards in Ecowhite ($2.75 package X3 = $8.25)
• 4bar envelopes in Curry ($3/pack x8 = $24)
• A2 scallop cards in Gravel ($3.25/pack x4 = $13)
• A6 flat cards in Ecowhite ($3.75/pack x3 = $11.25)
• A6 vellum envelopes ($12.99/pack x2 = $25.98) (from papersandmore.com)
• A7 envelopes in Gravel ($4.25/pack x8 = $34.00)
• Liner paper ($1.70/sheet x30 = $51.00) (from hamblyscreenprints.com)
• Roll of bakers twine in brown and white ($7 for roll) (from Etsy.com)
• Hot glue gun (already owned)
• Hot glue wax (already owned)
• sealing wax ($.50 stick x4 = $2)
• Vintage and current stamps ($.81 per envelope plus $.44 for reply card = $75 total)
• Gocco machine (already owned)
• 4 Gocco screens ($5/screen = $20) (from ebay.com)
• 8 Gocco bulbs ($2/bulb = $16) (from ebay.com)
• 2 Gocco inks ($3 tube = $6) (from ebay.com)

Total cost of invite project:

about $375*

*This cost includes small items I didn’t really keep track of such as: glue sticks, calligraphy pens etc. Also, it includes shipping and tax on certain items.

Total Cost per invitation set: $5.00. This project fell under the $500 budget we had set!

Time Breakdown:

Design Time (emailing back and forth with my designer friend): about three weeks.

Printing Time: I used a Gocco and it took me about five days to get everything printed, working about two hours each day. I had to make six separate prints for each invite:

• Return Address on Outer Envelope
• Address on Reply Envelope
• Reply Card
• Front of Invite
• Back of Invite
• Info Card

Lining the envelopes (completely unnecessary, and I probably wouldn’t do it again, but it does look lovely!): 1 day to cut, 1 day to fold and glue.

Putting them all together: About 4 days to package them all up, seal with wax, to make sure I had the numbers correct, etc.

Addressing the envelopes: This took FOREVER! I followed this trick and printed them in a super light grey on the darker grey envelopes. Then I turned on every light we own and traced it all with a calligraphy pen. After ten envelopes, my hand was cramping! I ended up addressing about 45 envelopes this way, but the second batch just had computer printed addresses. Give yourself a week to do this, or more if you have a lot of invitations.

Sprinkle’s Tips:

1. Start this project EARLY! Planning the design, buying supplies and waiting for them to arrive, re-designing, proofreading, and everything else will take way longer than you think. Try to give yourself an extra week beyond what you think you need if you are fully DIYing your invitations. And if they go out late, try not to worry about it too much!

2. Save some paper and some cash: only line your envelopes halfway down.

A liner from my template on the left, a liner from the Paper Source template on the right.

The liner ends juuuuust under the edge there!

You can’t tell that it is shorter than it should be! (Unless you get really curious as to what the envelope looks like inside!)

If you totally opened up the envelope, it would look like this.

By doing this I managed to squeeze out 3x as many liners from each sheet of paper. A huge savings in paper and cost!

3. Assign a number to each guest and write it in pencil on the back of the reply cards or an inconspicuous part of the reply envelopes. This way if a guest forgets to fill in the name section, you know who it is from!

4. We are having a small wedding—less than 100 people including us, our bridal party, and all of our vendors! To keep the “Can I bring a guest?” questions to a minimum, we used this wording:

We have saved ___ places in your honor.

We then filled in the blank and hoped for the best.

5. Use hot glue wax instead of real sealing wax! We used sealing wax on some invitations, but it is messy and the wax can burn when you use it, leaving soot-y brown streaks in your seal. Also, the USPS warns against real wax seals because they can melt in transport, leaving your invitations a smeared, waxy mess! The hot glue wax was super easy to use and still looked amazing. It is also available in any color you might need. I found it was best to not leave the seal in the hot glue wax for as long as recommended. I pulled it off after about 10 seconds (instead of the 30+ seconds the directions advised) and they looked perfect.

6. Don’t expect all of the RSVPs to come in on time. They probably won’t! Try not to get angry at people or quietly seethe (like I did). They will come eventually (at least this is what my mom tells me!).

7. Do what makes you happy. You want 12 different fonts and a rainbow of colors and a golden snitch letterpressed onto your invites? Do it! If it makes you happy and isn’t hurting anyone else, I really think you should go for it. Life is too short. If you want to save trees and send out an Evite?! DO IT! (Sometimes I wish I did!) Hand deliver some invitations to save on postage. Don’t write names on inner envelopes to save on calligraphy. Do what works for you!!! I really got to a point where I just wanted to throw all of my ideas away and send out a mass email. But I realized that would NOT make me happy. I wanted something tangible that we could hold on to forever. I wanted to see my ideas take shape with my own hands. And they did!

8. Try to enjoy the process. Even though it can be super frustrating when your text isn’t lining up properly, or your envelopes aren’t staying shut, know that it will all work out in the end.

Do you have any other DIY tips and tricks? I would love to hear them!