Weddings on a Budget on Pinterest
Welcome to the first of our seven-week series on Weddings on a budget! This series is written by Rebecca Grant owner of New Creations Wedding Design & Coordination, one of Seattle’s Premiere Wedding Coordinators. She’s filled with a wealth of information and she’s a good friend of mine – so I know you’re in good hands.
This week we will be covering the fine art of saving on wedding invitations.
Besides shopping for the wedding dress, deciding on your date, and nailing down your venue(s), invitations are one of the first things within the planning process that should be started. As a general rule of thumb, wedding invitations should be mailed out no later than 2 months prior to the wedding date (3 months if a lot of guests will be coming in from out of state).
Before getting started on your wording or even design, you need to consider what you will need within your invitation. Some things to think about are directions to your venue(s), local hotels close to your venue, fun activities for your guests to do while they’re in town, your RSVP card, and so on. Keep in mind, the more you add to your invitation, the more it will weigh, therefore driving up the cost of postage.
A more modern alternative to the traditional wedding invitation (and growing in popularity) are wedding websites and even totally paperless options such as Paperlesspost.com. Some popular wedding websites are WeddingWire.com or MyWedding.com. These are very user-friendly and allow you to share a lot of information to your guests very quickly, and best of all, they’re FREE!! Within these sites you can download photos of you and your fiancé, update guests on where you’re registered, spread the save-the-date’s, even down to giving your guests a timeline of the wedding day, and keeping track of RSVP’s.
Now if you’re like me and prefer the traditional mailed invitation (there’s just something about opening up a card in the mail), there are ways to cut costs here as well. There are some great DIY wedding invitation websites out there. I have personally used CardsandPockets.com for my own wedding invitations and loved the outcome! They offer live chat options via online or actually calling the company. There are about 7 people in the main office, so if you tend to call in a lot (yours truly), you will more than likely get to know them by name, and they offer amazing one-on-one service. There are countless other invitation sites out there, so just do a Google search, and find the site that fits you best.
One of the hidden secrets with placing an order online to order pretty much anything – but I know it works with wedding invitations – is to find someone with a business license! Again, for me personally, ordering online through my business saved me 15% on my overall order. That basically saved me my 10% Washington state sales tax with an additional 5% savings! I’ll take it! 🙂 Also, watch for sites that are offering sales for free shipping or even a local company that will make your invitations and let you come pick them up. This, of course, will save you a ton on shipping costs.
Once you’ve found the site you’re comfortable working with, the next step is to work on design. Be sure you stay consistent with your overall wedding theme, color palette, and style. Working through online invitation sites allows you to search through thousands of pre-set templates. This can often be a bit overwhelming. Narrow down your search by entering a few boundaries. You can often enter in a cap of the price you want to spend, the size/style you want, and narrow it down even more by choosing your colors. From there, search through the templates and more than likely, you will find one that fits your criteria. A tip here is to keep in mind the shape of your invitation. Non-standard shapes such as a square will cost you more in postage than the traditional card size.
Many sites will even do your printing for you. You can choose the font, color, and wording of your invitation and your insets. This is a HUGE cost savings to you as you won’t need to pay a separate printer or use letter pressing. Letter press is the most common type of printing on a wedding invitation, but it also is one of the most costly. Choosing standard black ink will generally be the least expensive option, and cost goes up from there. If you’re okay with black, use it. It’s easy to read, and always classic. You can bring in your wedding colors with the color of template you chose.
As far as inserts are concerned, less is better. The only thing I might order through your online site would be RSVP cards to keep the look consistent. A cost-cutting tip here is to order it in a postcard size. Put the recipients address, your return address and the POSTCARD postage on one side, and the other have your wording for your RSVP. The cost difference between actually having your RSVP in an envelope versus just making it a postcard style is $0.34 cents versus your standard card cost of $0.49 cents- right there a savings of $0.14 cents per invitation!
If it were me, I would opt to communicate all my other information via my wedding website including where you’re registered, directions to the venue, accommodations, and fun activities. This is also a great area to put whether children are invited or not – keeps you from having to tell your cousin, “Sorry, we don’t have space or money for your kids to come too.”
Some other tips are just to keep it simple. The more extravagant your invitation is, the more expensive it will be. Stick to an un-lined envelope, a standard shaped card, a set template, and minimal inserts. You will be pocketing the savings from the get go!
– Rebecca
How did you save on wedding invitations? Do you have questions or suggestions about invitations? You can leave a comment on this post or contact Rebecca through her New Creations Wedding Design & Coordination Facebook page and I definitely recommend following her Wedding Pinterest boards – they are amazing!
About Rebecca
Rebecca Grant is owner of New Creations Wedding Design & Coordination. She has been in the wedding business over nine years now, beginning her career in Honolulu, Hawaii, then moving back home to Seattle and launching her business Seattle Wedding Planning business in November 2009. She’s now one of Seattle’s premiere wedding planners. Because of her experience in Hawaii, her specialty is working with Asia-Pacific Brides; specifically, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Hawaiian and Samoan weddings, however, she also does work a good portion of the time with traditional Western couples. Rebecca would love to help you with your wedding!
Learn more about Rebecca and what she has to offer at New Creations Website! And seriously, check out her Pinterest boards – amazing ideas!
As you are planning your wedding, don’t forget to create a registry! Most stores offer registries and many have online options, making gift giving easier for out of town guests.
These are a few of our favorites:
Amazon Wedding Registry. With an Amazon Wedding Registry you get:
– 10% off most products on Amazon for a savings up to $100
– The World’s largest selection of items – register for all the items you both want.
– Plus keep track of what you want from anywhere. Add items from other websites to your Wedding Registry with the universal button.
Target Wedding Registry. Some of the great perks of a Target Wedding Registry:
– One year after your event date to return or exchange items from your Registry
– Easy to share with friends and family
– 15% coupon for items remaining on your registry.
Kendle Cole says
As for invitations. Check out Vista Print. I designed my own and waited until they has a sale. I ordered 200 invites with save the date cards shipped on black Friday for under 100$. This was a huge savings.