It’s about time I continued my previous post about invitations with an aptly named Part II.
Remember, we had nixed the full invitation suite in favor of keeping costs and effort down, but I still wanted to do something casual yet fun. I Googled “free wedding templates”—no shame, guys—and found Wedding Chicks, which has some really awesome custom wedding printables and downloads. Take the work out of it and get something personalized for free! Granted, this does not mean you’re the only person to ever use that invitation. I know that—although I figure the chances are slim that someone would receive two invitations using the same template, so I decided to go with it.
I wanted something casual and cute that was at least vaguely in our wedding colors. I think the bunting invitations were instantly my favorites.
Image via Wedding Chicks
Of course, we’re not doing RSVP cards, so all I downloaded was the invitation template. They had escort cards and table numbers in the same theme, though, along with more in other themes.
They have a fun coral and yellow vibe to them and preserve a little bit of traditional wording and presentation along with a casual feel with the fonts and design. After messing with the wording for forever, we came up with the following. (I’m not showing a picture of ours because it would be so blurred, but it looks just like the one in the pictures but with our names and information.)
Miss Lemur’s Parents
Along with Mr. Lemur’s Parents
Invite you to share their joy at the marriage of
Miss Lemur
to
Mr. Lemur
Saturday, May xx, 2013
at 11:00 in the morning
Pleasant Ridge Camp & Retreat Center
Address, Marietta, South Carolina
One other note on wording—I left this up to my parents. Because they’re technically hosting the wedding (paying for most of it), tradition dictates the invitations should come from them. However, Mr. Lemur’s parents are also helping us, and they’re just a huge part of our lives, so we decided on essentially a joint invitation. My mom nixed wording like “Request your presence” because she felt it was too formal—they eventually decided on “Invite you to share their joy,” which was actually my favorite from the beginning. So simple and happy!
A note on printing—we had ours done at my campus print shop and got an incredible deal on it. They also did a really great job. Breakdown on costs turned out to be $0.47/sheet for color printing plus $0.04/sheet for the ivory card stock. For 75 sheets (150 invitations) that was just under $40, but we got a 30% wedding discount, which put us just under $27 for all of our invitations. I’ll add this and more information to our budget post at the end!
Also, I now need to have bunting somewhere at the venue. I’m thinking draped along the mantle? For real, how perfect would that be? I can match the colors pretty closely with tissue paper, I’m thinking, and pull in the invitations to the decorations. That’s a huge victory for an obsessive bride like me.
Don’t worry, we still have to discuss assembling the invitations and printing the envelopes. Much more to come, so stay tuned for Part III!
Anyone else go the simple, free route? Anybody go the opposite direction and order custom design? Those invitations are always so pretty and I love the customization! Tell me about your experiences with wedding invitations—sending and receiving.
I love the free downloads from Weddingchicks. I have spent many hours “playing” with different versions of these. I finally ended up going with an invitation download I bought off of Etsy simply because we are having a meal choice at our reception and I needed to give my guests the choice on the RSVP. Our cost for printing ended up being around $65 including the RSVP which is a double sided postcard.I ordered beautiful metallic envelopes from envelope mall for $30 for 100. I could have gotten linen envelopes locally for around $5 but I figure I saved so much on the printing we could splurge on this. When I had looked at traditional invites the cost was going to be close to $400. So happy with the ones we chose!
I made a ton of pink, grey and white bunting – it was so easy! I cut the flags with pinking shears (so I didn’t have to hem them) and then glued the top into plain white quilt binding. I did sew a straight seam onto the quilt binding just to keep it super secure. So easy, and I LOVED the look!
PM me if you want the link to the pictures!
I’ve been following your wedding with interest as we have very similar aesthetics and budgets. I also have a simple silk chiffon wedding dress, brunch/afternoon tea type foods … and now I discover we have the same invitations! I loved these invites when I saw them. I have a graphic design friend who modified them a fair bit using InDesign so we could add a picture and monograms and I love the look! We started sending them out last week (long time in advance as we’re having a destination wedding of sorts) and the feedback has been very positive 
We created our own inserts with extra information. I tied the three elements together with ribbon and they look really pretty!
We’re in the midst of waiting for our custom Vera Wang invitations, and I hate to admit it but…The whole process has been a nightmare. If I could do it all over, I’d keep all my that money and go with my original DIY idea. The thought from both my mother (who offered to pay for custom invitation) and my fiancé is that it would be so much easier to have someone else take care of it. How nice it would be to go pick one out, tell them what we want it to say and have it show up two weeks later, addressed, assembled and absolutely beautiful. But it’s been nothing but headaches, missed deadlines and empty promises.
Me and my $1,000+ invitations envy you and yours
These are so cute and what an amazing deal on the printing!
@Mrs. Bracelet: I totally wasn’t looking for anything like that but loved it when I saw it!
@kellylee: I saw a couple downloads that I loved for pretty cheap on Etsy & a few other sites! If I hadn’t gotten this to work I totally would have gone with one of those. Sounds like you got an awesome deal though… I love spending a little extra to make something nice but still saving a ton of money
@sarahcool: I’m totally thinking about doing this! I got your message & I’ll check the link in a little bit
@Anne: comments like yours are my very favorite when/where is your wedding? Love that we have similar weddings! Keep me updated on your planning. I used ribbon to tie my invites together too… I’ll show them to you soon!
@shaynapunim: thank you!! I love them, and I think they give the cute & casual look we were going for
@MissSpark: Ugh I’m so sorry 
that’s a mess!! I’m sure they’ll look beautiful in the end. Every kind of invitation has it’s trials to be sure. I’m thrilled that we had as little drama as we did but it still took a good bit of work to get them together.
@Mrs. Pony: Awh thank you! I was super excited when she gave me the total and it was less than I had been expecting
I have found great wedding items on http://www.frombabiestobrides.com. I believe there is a sale going on right now for Save the dates, invitations and many other items.
$27 for invitations- wow!! That is incredible. I also ran across these in my search for invites.. I will admit invites was the one area I went a little “bridezilla”. I had already gone OVER budget in so many areas by the time invites rolled around, I simply didn’t have the money to increase what I had set aside. I searched every possible site (David’s Bridal, WeddingPaperDivas, PearTree, Ann’s Bridal Bargins, Vistaprint) and NOTHING was working for me. I then looked into DIY options but realized I didn’t have the time (or skill) for that. The problem was I wanted pocketfolds, belly bands, monogram seals, the whole nine years but didn’t have but maybe 1/3 the budget for them. I ended up finding a graphic designer though who is just doing this on the side to build her portfolio and she did them for me. I had to increase my budget a little (but not nearly as much as I would have through the websites) and got EXACTLY what I wanted. And since then, I have gotten further discounts on m DJ, linen rentals, and photographer so I made up the extra I added to invites budget!
I’ve been loving on that template for awhile now too, but I’m not sure whether I’ll use it or not. I do intend to do them myself, so I’m hoping to find similar deals on printing!
I will be doing DIY invites. I haven’t decided if I’ll do a template or work with FI to design our own (He’s pretty dang good with computers and such, and many people have told me my Microsoft Word skills are surprising). This is one aspect I’m super excited to take on!
High five, lady! We used the hearts ombre design off of WeddingChicks – we modified the wording and fonts and printed everything ourselves (as in: at home. And assembled them, too. Let’s talk about HOURS of work), but the overall design was TOO cute and perfect to pass up. I’m so glad someone else mentioned this!
These are so cute and,I’ve been loving on that template for awhile now
@Brooklyn55: This is a great idea and works so well! People are always looking for ways to increase their portfolio… not just photographers
@Blonde17Jess: Check around!! A small campus print shop ended up being cheaper than a major chain for us.
@StephK527: It was a lot of work! But less work than it could have been… all in all I’m super happy with the results. I’ll be talking about the rest of it in the next post 
I’ve been DIYing…. from. scratch.
It’s been interesting, I’m a graphic designer by trade and even I am kind of almost regretting taking it on.
Like you, we went the simple route instead of pocket folds and RSVP cards galore. Our wedding is small and casual and headcount doesn’t really matter, so I’m not going to use the RSVP card I had originally designed.. However, I may include a little tag with our website info, not that there is a whole lot on it
I also plan to include a tag or small card that has the information for the wedding photo app I want to use, WeddingParty. A lot of our guests have smartphones so it’ll be an awesome way for them to instantly share their snapshots with me!
Mrs. Lemur, Greenville, South Carolina Age and Occupation: 22, Graduate Student Fiance's Age and Occupation: 22, Security Officer Engagement Date: October 9, 2012 Wedding Date: May 2013 Venue: Pleasant Ridge Camp & Retreat Center About Me: I may fancy myself a doctor after too many episodes of House—but in reality I'm finally almost done with my degree in business administration (less than three months left!). My fiance and I met at school in undergrad hundreds of miles away from either of our hometowns and have been happily running and hiking together ever since. We're undertaking a long distance relationship as I finish school and we plan our casual wedding for a day after graduation—needless to say, it will be the busiest and most exciting weekend of our lives so far!
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