While your wedding day might be the happiest day of your life, it’s well known that the period leading up to it can be both a stressful and financial burden. Weddings are so complicated, tricky to organize, and all-around expensive!
While everyone expects the big costs, like the wedding venue, photographer, decor, and food, the smaller things can creep up on you - flowers, wedding favors, and even wedding invitations.
Invitations can be shockingly expensive, and if you’re planning a large wedding, the cost can really add up.
Luckily, if you’re here you’re already ahead of the game, and planning to cut down on your invitation costs!
There are so many ways you can cut down on the cost of your wedding invitations, and we’ll give you an overview of all of the main ones:
Let’s dive right in, and hey, congratulations!
In this day and age, no one is expecting a traditional, physical wedding invite. One of the best ways to save money on your wedding invitations (or even do them for free) is to opt for digital invitations.
Traditional invitations can cost anywhere from four to six hundred dollars, and that’s on that low end.
Getting premium, custom designed and beautiful digital invitations can be as low as a hundred dollars, and can often be bundled with save the dates, wedding websites, and more!
If you’re on a shoestring budget, you can even make and send out digital invitations yourself.
Be careful.
Unless you have a keen eye for graphic design, trends and aesthetics, and organizational management though - you don’t want to just send out an email, and you definitely don’t want to miss anyone out or invite someone accidentally who’s not on your list!
Along with amazing savings, digital wedding invitations are a lot more environmentally friendly, cutting back on the amount of paper used in your wedding.
Plus, some traditional wedding invitations have a plastic-like gloss or coating, which means they can’t even be recycled!
Finally, doing your save-the-dates and wedding invitations digitally makes things a lot more convenient for you and your guests!
Your guests will get reminders for RSVPs, and can seamlessly integrate your wedding into their digital calendars.
By RSVPing online, it makes it a lot easier for you, or anyone else planning the wedding to track attendance, plus ones, dietary preferences, and more.
Plus, you can push reminders without awkwardly having to chase up your guests on the phone or in person.
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If you’re set on having physical invitations, that’s still a hundred percent okay!
Many people still choose to use classic invitations for a variety of reasons - they enjoy the tradition, they want themselves and their guests to have a keepsake, they enjoy the whimsy of something other than bills and ads showing up in the mail, etc.
However, as mentioned above, physical wedding invitations can often be costly.
One of the best ways to save on your wedding invitations is to opt for a simple design.
This doesn’t mean you can’t still make your invitation personalized - it just means choosing a less fancy cardstock and cutting back on features like gilding and embossing.
It also usually means having a single-page, postcard-sized invite, rather than a booklet, pop-out, or unique one.
Fancier is not always better!
Along with being cost-saving, simple wedding invites are classy, easily understandable, and perfectly acceptable and expected.
At the end of the day, all your guests need to know in their invite is who is getting married, when, and what they need to do to RSVP - and you can get that done with a pretty simple wedding invitation!
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When you are sorting out your wedding invitations, like with all your other wedding expenses (and we know there are a lot of them), it’s a good idea to look for deals and coupons you can use to cut down on costs.
Wedding invitation and planning sites often run promotions and coupon deals that can save you anywhere from 25 to 50% off on your invitations!
For instance, Shutterfly, a popular wedding invitation and Save the Date provider, is currently offering half off on all cards and forty percent off on everything.
Going through a provider like Shutterfly can also save you heaps of time - there’s even an option for them to mail the invitations out for you.
When you’re working on a budget, time becomes your most precious resource. It’s really important to start planning early, so you can get a good idea of what your budget is, and what style of invitations you plan on doing.
That way, you can check the provider for deals, and shop around until you find the right invites at the right price. Don’t forget to factor in shipping cost as well.
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Cons
If you’re looking to cut down on expenses as much as possible, you might choose to make your wedding invitations yourself.
By printing out or handwriting your wedding invites, you can save as much as eighty percent of the standard invitation cost.
Remember, you’ll still need to purchase the type of paper or cardstock you’re using, envelopes, shipping or stamps, and any ink, photographs, or other decorative features you want to include.
Making your own invitations is a lot of work, so be careful not to bite off more than you can chew.
While it’s definitely doable, it might be a better option for smaller, more intimate weddings.
Once you start getting over fifty guests, it becomes very tedious and time-consuming, as well as difficult to organize.
Doing your own wedding invitations also means you have to keep track of replies and RSVPs yourself when they start rolling in, which can also add stress and eat into your planning time.
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Another excellent way to bundle and save on your wedding invitations is to use a wedding website. Wedding websites, like The Knot, typically serve as an alternative or addition to traditional invitations.
With wedding websites, you can have everything your guests need to know (location, timing, dress code, food and drink, gifts, etc.) in one easy-to-access, gorgeous online location.
These websites are typically customized and have features like digital RSVP’s and even a place for guests to share any wedding photos they may have taken, as well as view the official photos after they are released.
However, many people find that just having a wedding website is not enough.
Sending a link might feel cheap and impersonal, and it can also be confusing and foreign to some, especially to older guests.
If you’re having a casual, small, or modern wedding, you’re probably going to be just fine with the wedding website instead of invitations and save the dates.
If not though, you can still use a website and utilize all of its features, but just send physical (or digital) invitations as well!
This is really the best of both worlds, and you can cut back on the number of real invitations you send out if you wish, and you can always have the website as a place for more information.
This means you don’t need to overcrowd the invite with things like venue information, and you won’t need to be fielding as many calls for questions from confused or anxious guests.
Additionally, many wedding website providers allow you to order your wedding invitations straight through them as well!
This means savings when you utilize the same vendor and cohesive invitations that match or complement your website design. You can even get the link or scannable QR code for the website printed straight onto your invitations or save the date cards!
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There are so many different ways to save money on your wedding invitations!
Whether you want to send out sleek, trackable digital invites, simple and budget friendly traditional designs, heartfelt and handwritten cards, or just a link to your very own wedding website, there’s a cost saving style that will work for you.