Prettying Up a Package

Prettying Up a Package

October 27th, 2011 @ 7:36 am by Miss Fox
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I’ve never loved my ruler so much.

That’s my handy Publisher work right there.

One of the issues regarding our save the dates (and invites, for that matter) is the actual size. When I go about designing things on the computer, I tend to disregard measurements and proportions and such; hence, I end up with a 7 x 7 design coming out of my printer when I meant for it to be 4 x 4, or vice versa (that zoom function is tricky). You get the idea.

Honestly, I initially didn’t care what size some things ended up being. But then I realized that I need to put all of these paper goods into envelopes and stamp them.

A funky size STD/invite = a funky, custom-sized envelope = lots o’ monies.

Dear lord, I wish. / Image via methodsshop.com

Enter my ruler and my paper cutter. I LOVE those things right now.

While a lot of what I’m doing is trial and error—designing, printing, cutting, resizing—it’s also based on what size envelopes I can (affordably) buy. I’ve heard it a million times in the wedding world and I will definitely reiterate it: make sure you choose/have the envelopes BEFORE you go designing and ordering any paper products. Wedding rule number 12, FYI.

All well and good. My initial plan was to use a good old belly band to hold together the invite, RSVP card, and possibly the website card as well. All I would need to buy is an envelope for the RSVPs, and another one for the whole invite package itself.

Prettying Up a Package : wedding havre de grace save the dates stationery Rebecca rebecca

Image via Project Wedding by DK Designs

Image via Ivandy27 on Etsy

Image via It’s a Date Design

And then…I fell in love with vellum envelopes.

Image via Elizabeth Anne Designs

Image via Mrs. Gloss!

They just look so…sexy. I especially love the idea and the look of Mrs. Gloss’s invites…to have one regular envelope, with all the invite pieces further contained in a vellum envelope. (I also kind of love how she did a twine “belly band” too—why pick just one?!)

So, of course, using a vellum envelope would bring us up to a grand total of three envelopes, each one slightly bigger than then next so they all fit inside each other. And probably increased postage, too. Oh, and did I mention our invites will be square? Well they will be. And for some reason, square envelopes cost more.

It’s funny (read: dumb) how all these little things add up, cost-wise—the trick is to keep it DIY and still as economical as possible. I have yet to calculate and compare price points, but I still keep seeing those silly little dollar signs.

How did you assemble your invites? Did you go for cost, practicality, maybe a nice combo?

Tags: havre-de-grace, save-the-dates, stationery |

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10 Responses to “Prettying Up a Package”

Member

lisaelanna (message) 315 posts, Helper bee

I would say to stay away from the ribbon band, at least for your save the dates. I did a ribbon band for my invitations and they were beautiful. However, even buying ribbon when it was 50% off at Hobby Lobby, it added probably $50 to the cost of the invitations, not to mention that it took FOREVER to assemble. Not so long that I’d say not to do it for your real invitations, but I would hate for you to be so tired of making the save the dates when you’re done that you don’t have as much zeal for tackling the main invitations (which are, in my opinion, much more important). But I guess maybe if you have lots of help from friends or a small guest list maybe it wouldn’t be too much work (I had no help and 175 invitations).
Also, it sounds like you’ve looked into the postage cost, and I thought I had too, but being square are oversize ups the postage rate twice and made the postage on my invitations over $1 a piece, and they weren’t even close to being overweight. Just FYI.

10/27/11 @ 8:05 am (reply)

Bee

Miss Dalmatian (message) 480 posts, Helper bee

I totally feel your pain! I have not yet embarked on our DIY invitations but I have some ideas growing, and when I try to do a price break-down of all the supplies I would need, it tends to come out costing more than just buying invitations!
If it helps, all of your ideas sound awesome! I love both belly bands and vellum envelopes - I can’t wait to see what the end up looking like

10/27/11 @ 8:31 am (reply)

Bee

Mrs. Pony (message) 4,174 posts, Honey bee

I love vellum envelopes! I went with design and tried to find ways to bring the costs down.

10/27/11 @ 8:40 am (reply)

Bee

Miss Aardvark (message) 635 posts, Busy bee

We are in the slow process of DIY-ing.. I had to keep stopping myself from add-ons. I would have ended up with every cute idea I came across on our invites! It’s hard.
I do love the vellum envelopes.

10/27/11 @ 8:41 am (reply)

Member

poelette13 (message) 61 posts, Worker bee

Have you considered using a square vellum inner to perfectly fit your square invitation and then having the outer envelope be a regular rectangle? You could just glue a piece of cardstock in to fill that extra space on the rectangle and get the same effect. Sneaky! Here’s a link you may want to check out:

http://seasiderosecottage.blogspot.com/2008/12/modifying-envelopes-for-square-cards.html

As for the belly band - have you considered twine, instead? Probably way cheaper and less time consuming, but similar in feel? Just an idea! I love belly bands, but I know how tedious all the assembly can get.

I semi-DIYd our invitations. I hand-cut and assembled pocketfolds and glued the invitation down on the inside, then I used yarn (I unraveled a strand and used 2 tiny kinky strands for a daintier feel) to tie the inserts together, and used a ZOTs glue dot to make sure that packet was secure in the pocket (since the ends of the pocketfold were open going through the mail). Everything worked great!

Good luck, whatever you decide

10/27/11 @ 11:41 am (reply)

Bee

Mrs. Parasol (message) 2,132 posts, Buzzing bee

You sound so like me when I was doing our invitations! First of all, I’m terrible about sizing things correctly, which led to a lot of pain-in-the-butt resizing down the line. And I, also, was so indecisive. I love vellum envelopes and would have been so happy if we used them, but alas, they just weren’t in the budget for us!

10/27/11 @ 2:32 pm (reply)

Guest

Viviana

I used a square envelope and I loved it!! Yes it was a little pricier especially to send but I think it added the modern touch that I needed. I also used a velvet ribbon belly band. I think my total cost of invites was like $600 for 130 (mostly because of trial and error like having too small of an RSVP…thank God for left over paper to fix the issue but had to buy new envelopes). Have fun!

10/27/11 @ 2:51 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Sunhat (message) 865 posts, Busy bee

Oh yeah - I know about about the square envelopes! I knew it was going to cost me more but it hurt worse than I was expecting!!

10/27/11 @ 5:30 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Fox (message) 859 posts, Busy bee

@lisaelanna: I’ve looked into postage cost but didn’t realize it’s almost twice as much! Geez. And I’m def going simpler with the STD’s, which still takes a bunch of time on it’s own. I can’t even imagine the time the invites will take!
@Miss Dalmatian: Thanks, D! I get what you mean about cost.. I *think* we’ll still get a decent price DIY’ing as opposed to ordering, but at this point, who knows!
@poelette13: Oh my gosh, the rectangle envelope thing is pure genius! I’m definitely looking into that.. thank you!
@Mrs. Parasol: Ditto re: budget. Whyyy is something see through more expensive?!
@Viviana: Ohh velvet ribbon.. I bet that was just gorgeous.
@Miss Sunhat: You’re scaring me, Sunhat.. dun dun dunnn.

10/27/11 @ 6:44 pm (reply)

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