Weddingbee Blog

Let’s hop back for a moment and revisit my decision to make our own save the dates.

I figured that if I was going to go DIY our wedding stationery, I might as well look into paper choices that I wouldn’t necessarily have if I had gotten pre-printed save the dates. So, the first thing I looked at was the heftiness of my paper choices.

Paper weight

There are several types of paper—cover, text, writing and bond (for those in the paper industry, don’t shoot me if I’m wrong). The paper is further categorized by weight (in pounds)—meaning the weight of a certain number of sheets. For a much better explanation of paper weight, go to The Paper Mill Store—they have a webpage explaining all this mumbo jumbo.

Source

If you don’t want to read in-depth, here’s a tip: you want cover paper. It’s the heavier weight. 80lb is about the lightest I would go, although for a nice thick feel and paper that does not waver in the wind when you hold it, 110lb and above was the choice for me.

On the other hand, 80lb is usually the heaviest recommended weight for inkjet printers (which I’m assuming most of you would be using at home unless you are STEALING FROM YOUR EMPLOYER and using the laser printer–I am *positive* that none of you do that). But don’t fear, there are some inkjet printers that can do the job, like the top-loading Canon ip2600 inket printer we have at home:

Source ($49 at Amazon)

Actually, in my experience, laser printers (yes, the ones at work–lips zipped, ladies), actually had a harder time pulling in the 110 lb paper than this inkjet printer.

I’ll save another aspect of the paper selection process, paper finish, for the next post.

Are there any aspects of paper selection you found fascinating? Anybody have good luck with printing heavy paper with a home printer?