Weddingbee Blog

I’ve shown you all the individual components of the invitations, but now that they’re off in space (or in peoples’ homes, since we’ve already received a few RSVPs!), I thought I would show you how they all came together and do a price breakdown.

This is what people will see first: my so-so handwriting with a simple roller pen, and standard USPS $0.44 wedding stamps.

I very, very briefly considered vintage and custom stamps, but the price was prohibitive and I just didn’t care that much. I also considered purchasing a calligraphy pen to address the envelopes, but I figured that my mediocre handwriting would stand out less if I used a simpler pen. It’s not perfect, but I’m not unhappy with how it came out.


After guests carefully open the envelope so as to preserve the liner (shh; don’t tell me otherwise!), they’ll get an awesome eyeful of some corner flourishes and… a belly band! What ever could the belly band be holding together?

Front

Back

And here are all of the pieces together.

Yeah, so speaking of USPS postage… can’t they come up with something better—or at least more universal—than a polar bear?

And the stealthy back of the RSVP postcards. I remain more proud of this than any other DIY project I have undertaken, for some reason.

And now, I commence the freak-outs while I wait for the rest of the responses. OH MY GOD I’M ABOUT TO GET MARRIED! Ahem, as I was saying. Price breakdown.

• Invitations, envelopes, and RSVP postcards: $439.73 after tax for 115 invitations. I placed a deposit on our letterpress invitations when Ajalon Invitations was having a special of 100 invites for $3.50 (the special prices have gone up since then, but they are still quite low for the quality).
• Patterned paper for liners and belly bands: $40 at Envelopper Inc. I found a coupon online for free shipping. This only bought enough paper for 100 invitations (2 packs of 25 8½ x 11″ sheets); I didn’t line the international ones.
• Ivory cardstock for additional insert: $6.11 at Staples for 125 sheets (I used the rest for the menus). Only 30 sheets were used on these inserts, so this item will overestimate invitation costs, but I won’t prorate it since I used most of the rest on the menus.
• Postage: $74.16. I came just under the 1 oz weight limit for $0.44 postage, and used $0.28 stamps for the postcards, times 100, plus two international invitations (the remainder of the international invitations were hand-delivered by Papa Spaniel in the fall).

That brings the total cost of invitations to $560, or $4.87 per invite. I think this is a really good price for letterpress invitations with so many extras! Not only that, but it keeps su well within our stationery budget.

But we all know that “stationery” consists of more than just the invitations—if I’m being honest, I should also include the STDs, thank you cards, and programs. The STDs were a little pricey compared to what I now know I could have bought them for (oops!) at $80, while my homemade thank you cards were a steal at $6.11 (more cardstock) plus $4.99 for envelopes—I’ll also assume 100 stamps at $0.44 (though it will probably be fewer). The programs were a bit pricier, as well: 50 sheets of 11 x 17″ black cardstock ran me $28.90 (shipping was, again, free from Envelopper Inc.), while I managed to get 500 sheets of ivory printer paper at Staples for another $6.11. The green ribbon was $6.99 per roll, times two rolls (I didn’t end up needing the third, so I returned it), bringing the total program cost to $48.99.

(Things I did not include in final cost were adhesives for attaching the envelope liners [I already had it at home], hole punchers [which were only a dollar each and will outlast these projects], my rotary trimmer [because I also already had it], and printer ink [too hard to calculate per page costs!].)

All of this brings our stationery to a grand total of $744.09, plus or minus a few cents or dollars here or there for tax I may have forgotten to account for (I can’t remember if I paid sales tax on the card stock or liner paper) or rounding I may have done in previous accounting. I have lots of leftover card stock that I will use for table numbers and place cards, and leftover paper and card stock that I will use for non-wedding projects, so I think that means that I came in… under budget! It’s a feat of which I am especially proud, since I budgeted for 100 invitations and ended up needing 115, and I didn’t necessarily think in advance of all the other paper items I would need. Hooray!

Did you do a cost-breakdown of any of your projects? Were they where you expected them to be?