For brides on a tight budget, things like wedding invitations often get pushed down the list of priorities to pay for. After all, it’s the decorations, the dress and the food that will all end up being memorialized through photographs, so why spend all that money to pick out fancy invitations?
Because they matter. It’s quite simple. The first impression people get of your engagement and, by association, your wedding is that invitation, so you don’t want to skimp on the invites. You can only make a first impression once, so make sure it’s a good one.
Budget Friendly Options to Avoid
Using Evites or Paperless Post
No matter how easy this sounds, or how affordable these options are, don’t use Evites, Paperless Post or any service similar to those for the actual invitation. It’s easy for your invitees to ignore emails with the details, and your wedding deserves more attention than the average person gives emailed invitations.
Besides, there are often generational issues here, where certain age groups fail to fully grasp how evites work, making your job more difficult.
Printing the Invites Yourself
Unless you have a very high quality color laser printer in your house, don’t print the invitations yourself. You’ll end up spending a fortune on ink or toner, proper printing paper and the end results won’t be as impressive as the cost would suggest. This is both a waste of time and money, and any thoughts of printing your own should be nipped in the bud.
Follow These Tips
Use Evites or Paperless Post
Wait, what? We just said don’t use these services. Yes, don’t use them for the invitations. Instead, send your engagement announcements and save-the-date information through email. You’ll save a lot of money over mailing these things, and you can still get a beautiful invitation in the mail to all your guests.
Make Them Yourself
Again, wait, what? Don’t print wedding invites yourself; that’s still an edict. You can, however, write them yourself if you happen to have beautiful handwriting or know calligraphy. It’s intimate, personal and will blow people’s minds if you can pull it off correctly.
Consider Minted.com
When I got married last year, I used Minted.com for my invitations, and I could not be more pleased. Everything turned out great, and I ended up spending around $2.50 per invitation. Those are very, very affordable by invitation standards.
Only Send RSVP Cards to Those Who Need Them
While I completely loath e-mailed invitations to events, I absolutely adore RSVPing to things online. RSVP cards can add anywhere from $2 to $10 per invite, which will really help you destroy your budget in no time at all.
Instead, after mailing your invitations, send friends and close family (or simply people who won’t get offended) a Facebook invite to the wedding, and let people RSPV through there. You’ll save money, and people won’t have to be bothered to send back the RSVP card.
If you’re somewhat internet savvy, you can also create your own website for just this purpose. There is a very good RSVP plugin for WordPress that makes this all pretty easy, so even if you aren’t very savvy, you could probably figure it out.
For crotchety family members who will judge you harshly for doing that, go ahead and splurge on the RSVP cards to keep them content; then seat them next to someone terribly annoying for the reception.
