Bride Blogger Amanda: Invitations and Wedding Stationery

At first, my fiancé and I thought we didn’t care about our wedding invitations or having heavily themed wedding stationery (from save-the-dates through thank-yous). We just wanted to give our guests something simple with the needed information and call it good. We knew we didn’t want anything fancy, expensive or involved, and we also knew we didn’t have the time or patience to put something together ourselves. We figured we could find something chic and inexpensive online and that would be that.


Of course, things are never that straightforward.

When it came down to it though, we did care about our invites. While we didn’t want to spend a lot of time or money on something that – let’s face it – would end up in the trash can, we also didn’t want our invitations to look like we didn’t spend a lot of time or money on them. Funny how that works. As such, it took us a long time to find something we both really liked for a reasonable price. For something that was supposed to be a quick item to check off the to-do list, it wound up being much more time-intensive than I expected.

After spending a ton of time looking around, we finally came across MagnetStreet (MagnetStreet.com), an online vendor that specializes in magnets, as the name indicates, but also has an extensive collection of wedding invitations and other stationery. We finally found our modern, simple, inexpensive invites, including the invitation itself, an RSVP card, a reception card and envelopes, and were very pleased with the results. To cut costs, I elected to create the card with accommodation information, directions and a map. There are lots of handy DIY guides and websites to help you with this sort of thing, particularly the map. It did take some time, but we saved a lot of money doing this one piece ourselves – over 50 percent. To cut even more costs, we ordered simple black and white thank-yous from Target that match our invitations but weren’t part of the “invitation suite” at MagnetStreet. If you're looking for invitations, make sure to check out local Nebraska vendors as well as there are lots of great printers and designers in the area!

We also invested in an address embosser with our return address on it to add a little something special to the envelopes. We bought a house together recently, so we used our new address for it and figured we would get a lot of use out of it beyond just the wedding. Plus, it saved having to print labels for or write out our return address on all the envelopes. Because our invites were square, they did cost twice as much to mail, but we made lemonade out of lemons and got these cute king and queen of hearts stamps so we could put one of each on the envelopes.

We also sent save the dates this past January, and we went for a simple postcard. For those, we went online to Shutterfly.com and used one of their easy templates to insert a few of our engagement pictures (which we had digital rights to, thanks to our photography package) and add the important information. So easy and quick!

Whether you want an extensive wedding stationery suite or simple invitations, here’s a few things to keep in mind:

• Proofread everything well! More than once! I did, and I still missed something, but I’ll never tell where it is.

• Consider having someone else (a parent, for instance) keep track of your RSVPs. We’re having my mom do it for us because I know as the wedding gets closer, I’ll have less time to track responses. There are many ways to handle keeping everyone in the loop, including online RSVP managers that more than one person can have access to. My mom will enter our RSVPs in a spreadsheet that I can also log into and check on progress.

• One thing we did not do, which I wish we had done, is to assign each invitation/guest/family a number in your master guest list and then number the RSVP cards discreetly somewhere corresponding to the invite. That way, if an RSVP comes back without a name you can track where it came from by the numbers.

• If you’re the crafty or graphic design type, making your own invitations can save a lot of money. But sometimes it doesn’t. When making your own invites, make sure the materials you’re using and skills you have really will save money. Paper, printing and fancy supplies can add up very quickly. Also, consider the time factor – sometimes spending a tad more (and in some cases, the same amount) to have someone else do it for you pays off in spades in less stress and more time to do other things!

• If you do happen to have a friend or family member who is good at designing and creating invitations, ask them to help you in lieu of giving you a wedding gift.

• It’s not necessary to make your invitations the “color” of your wedding, especially if it is a hard color to match. Our colors are plum and black, but purples are difficult to match perfectly; we also couldn’t find any invitations with plum-colored accents we liked. Simple black and white invitations are always elegant and can be modern or more traditional based on design and fonts.

• Instead of cramming information into the invitation and inserts, consider setting up a wedding homepage on sites like Nebraska WeddingDay's website. Include your page on your save-the-date or invite and direct your guests there to get more information.

• By the way, it’s not really necessary to send save-the-dates. If you don’t, just send your invitations a little sooner. Traditionally, they only need to be sent to out-of-town guests who will need to make travel arrangements well in advance and perhaps those old college friends who might not expect to be invited.

• Be sure you have the RSVPs due back in enough time for you to finalize your reception plans. We have ours coming back a month before the wedding. That way, even those last-minute responders who miss the deadline will still hopefully send theirs in well before we need a final headcount. Also, remember to factor in your RSVP deadline when figuring out when to send out invites.

• Even if you go the inexpensive route, there are ways to make the invitations uniquely yours. For instance, since I’m a former English major, we included a lovely literary quote about love on our invitations in one of the customizable spots. We also embossed our address onto the invitation envelopes. Other things you can do: add a ribbon in your wedding color or a fun paper clip to keep things together or make one of the insert cards yourself and be creative!