Express Yourself
You want your invitation to be different from everyone else's, but you also don't want to spend a lot of money. Stay with the least expensive cardstock and printing options, and then add your own unique features with a special or customized sealing stamp or ribbon that you can attach yourself.
DIY Invitations
You can make your own wedding invitations. Buy kits at office-supply or stationery stores and design them at home. All you need is a little time and a good printer — no artistic ability required. You can design your own invitations using a word processing program, then print them out and assemble them. Invitation kits come with everything you need, including response cards and envelopes. Paper Source has unique kits and ideas for do-it-yourself invitations.
Alert
Watch out: Wedding-invitation suppliers are banking on you becoming so enthused that you end up ordering hundreds of dollars of their merchandise. The list of extras available, such as fancy ribbons and printing, foil papers, or pressed flowers, is astonishing. Before you agree to extra combinations, ask yourself whether you really need all those features.
Special Touches
One bride and groom who were having a medieval-style wedding printed their invitations on 8½-by-11-inch pieces of ivory paper, which they rolled and tied with ribbons: voilà, scroll invitations! They cost a little more to mail because they needed mailing tubes, but the couple felt the effect was worth the extra expense.
Another bride who was getting married in a Victorian mansion wanted more elaborate invitations without spending a lot. She chose rose-colored paper, a fancy font, and glued pressed flowers and lace medallions on the invitations.
Fact
Make sure you factor in all of the paper-related expenses you'll rack up for your wedding, including ceremony programs and thank-you cards. You can buy thank-you cards in bulk from your stationer. Menus for each place setting at the reception are also a nice touch.
One couple invited their guests to a Western-style wedding with a chambray-blue invitation sporting a rope border encircling the text.
Think about a theme for your wedding. Is there a way to have fun conveying it by way of your invitation? You're planning a wedding at the beach… Doesn't that setting lend itself to invitations that convey a seaside mood? Try to find invitations that set the style and tone of your wedding without adding significant expense.
Our Three Couples
After looking at several stationery stores and Web sites, Susan and Nick thought about designing their own invitations but realized they didn't really have enough time to do so. However, they remembered that a friend of theirs, a recent computer graphics graduate, often did freelance work for local businesses to help pay his tuition. The friend is working with them on a simple invitation design featuring Susan's daisy-themed wedding. A local office-supply store will do the printing for a very reasonable price.
Essential
Some couples include their e-mail addresses on their invitations, allowing guests to R.S.V.P. electronically. People are so busy these days, it's often easier for them to respond by e-mail. Personalized wedding Web sites give you the option to let guests respond online, too.
Kylie and Sean wanted invitations to suit their traditional wedding, including reception cards and special touches like wax seals closing the envelope. They opted for a local stationer to whom they were willing to pay a little extra for invitations that set the formal tone of their wedding.
From the deck of the marina country club where they're having their wedding and reception, Lynn and John took a photograph of a gorgeous sunset, which they had reproduced on their wedding invitation with a foil seal of the club on the envelope. Kylie admitted the invitations were pricey, but added, “They're so beautiful, an aunt has already framed hers and sent it to us as a gift for our home.”
