I have a thing for paper goods. I spend an inordinate amount of time staring at invitations of all sorts, which includes lots of wedding invitations, naturally. DIY invitations can mean pretty much anything – from designing your invitations all by yourself to simply picking out the wording and licking the envelopes. If your main motivation for going DIY on the invites is to save a bit of money, you’ll want to start with some research. (Note – throughout this post, I’ve included photos of invitation suites that I’m absolutely in love with, but they aren’t necessarily all DIY projects, just a bit of inspiration).
{image c/o cevd}
Check postage first – We initially planned on using square envelopes, until we found out that it would have increased the postage significantly. The USPS website has plenty of information on envelope size and weight limits. Postage adds up quickly, so don’t get attached to anything before you figure out what options you can afford.
{image c/o cevd}
Make the most of your paper – Paper itself is the other big factor. To make our invitations as affordable as possible, we decided that the printed area would be 1/4 of a standard size sheet of printer paper (5.5 inches tall by 4.25 inches wide). This allowed us to print four invites to a page and we didn’t waste any paper. To gussy them up and make them sturdier, we mounted them on 5×7 inch cardstock (which you can often buy pre-cut in paper stores).
{images c/o Josh Goleman via Once Wed}
Enlist help, if necessary – If you’re planning to design your invitations yourself, it helps if you have a bit of design background. If you read the fine print on many of the posts about fabulous DIY invites, you’ll see that often the bride or groom (or sometimes both!) is a designer. If you’re lucky enough to have a friend who is familiar with Illustrator or another design program, see if you can enlist their help (bribe with home cooked meals for best results). If you’re not a designer, don’t give up! It is possible to create a simple, lovely invitation design in Word or Powerpoint, with a bit of work
{true DIY invitations designed and photographed by the brilliant Jamie of a Desert Fete}
Personalize with simple touches – I use rubber stamps all the time to customize the packaging for my Etsy shop. It’s one of the easiest ways to make something feel like your own. There are many wonderful stamp designers on Etsy who will create custom pieces. If you have some design background, you can create your own images and have them made into stamps (I use rubberstamps.net for mine). I’m still a sucker for Martha Stewart’s wrap around labels and she has templates up on her site.
{image c/o Thoughtful Day}
11 comments
I love the idea of making your own invitations – you can do so much more to personalize them and get them exactly the way you want! Thanks for sharing these great tips.
THANKS!!!! saw the wrap around addresses in another post but not that there was a MS Template!
I love the bag. Is it made with a STAMP??
i’ve always had a love affair with paper and creating paper-goods, so i knew all along i wanted to design my own wedding invitations. i did the invitations totally DIY for my wedding last august, and they turned out amazingly! but that was after HOURS of labour, countless setbacks, beads of sweat on the foreheads of my bridesmaids, and at least one teary episode from me. But looking back, it was totally worth it. We used a gold-embossed rubber stamp of a beautiful tree silhouette, and the invitations came out elegant & simple, and just the way i wanted them to. i recommend to anyone that DIY invitations can come out gorgeous, and for a good amount of savings, but be sure you have the time and the dedication (and the friends to help!!)
Great tips! I want to print napkins and canvas bags for my wedding… i’m totally inspired
I love this advice and the inspiration photos. I am making my own invitations and plan on doing something similar to what the guest blogger did — printing out the invitations and mounting them on a thicker card (postcards, actually). Does anyone have any advice as to how to cleanly mount the paper onto the cards?
I love that bag. Can you please post the source or Etsy vendor?
@ Sandy – Spray glue! It’s a miracle product and I don’t know how I lived without it. I prefer Super77, but that’s just one brand. You can get it at any craft store, at most office supply stores, even at some hardware stores.
To set up, put a large piece of cardboard outside and lay your printed invitations face down (wait for a day when it isn’t too windy! spray glue is a bit messy even without the wind). Have a space set up close by with a firm surface and spread your postcards out on that. Working in batches (don’t do more than 5 – 10 at once, depending on how quick you are) spray the back of the printed invites and then place them on the backings. Lay a piece of clean paper over the entire thing and then rub your hand over it to smooth it all out. When you’re working with something as special as your invites, you’ll probably want to be extra careful, maybe switching the cardboard after each set, as the spray glue can get on stuff.
The advantage is that spray glue bonds better than anything else, it doesn’t warp or leave bubbles. Perfect.
I would try a test drive with some paper you don’t care about, if you aren’t familiar with using spray glue already.
@ Stephanie – the totes are sold by Thoughtful Day and they are gorgeous but understandably pricey (custom work, and I think they are screenprinted).
For a DIY alternative, I would recommend hiring a graphic designer to make a custom design for you (unless you’re lucky enough to be talented in this area yourself!) and then sending the image out to be made into a large rubber stamp. Buy some blank tote bags and some fabric ink (available at the craft store, with instructions) and get to stamping. This method isn’t going to look quite as professional as the bags pictured here, but it’s a viable alternative and I think your guests would love it.
@Rachel
Thanks so much! Will get to it!
I also love the bag and thanks for the tips on how to make one on your own.