Wifey Wednesday: DIY Invitations

Hello future brides!

A lot of people have asked me where we got our wedding invitations. I was flattered, because we made them! We spent about $250 for 135 invitations. Here are steps and items we used (unfortunately I don't have a lot of pictures of the process, it was a stressful night and the one below was what I kept because it wasn't "perfect" - AKA the lace is crooked and not centered):

Items Used:

- 12/12 sheets of paper ordered online from JoAnn's (175 count) $65

- 8.5x11 sheets of heavy cardstock from Michaels (200 count) $40

- two black ink cartridges $35

- lace (eight spools of 2" lace, not sure how many yards) $40

- hot glue gun and sticks (already had, but about $15 )

- scissors (already had, about $5)

- straight edge paper cutter $20

- 6.5x6.5 white envelopes (150 count) $60

TIP: Looking for coupons for Michaels, Joann's, or online deals really helps save! Make multiple trips to craft stores, or bring multiple people! with Michaels 40% off coupons I saved a lot!

Step One: Design your invitation on Word and pick out your paper. You have to decide what font, what your color scheme is, wording, etc. Look online for free fonts. We used Great Vibes for the majority of our invitations. Look at Pinterest to determine what style of invitations you like. 90% of the time it is worth it to do it yourself!

TIP: You can't print in bright colors like aqua, bright yellow, etc. Even kinkos can't unless it's a picture or you want to spend $$$$ ! I tried just about everything!

Step Two: Print out and cut your invitation to size. If you are adding ribbon or lace, cut one of that too. Also decide how big you want your background cardstock to be.

Step Three: Assemble your sample invitation. Doesn't have to be perfect and you can use regular computer paper if you don't want to waste a sheet of cardstock. If you like how it looks, gather a team of helpers!

Step Four: Print all of the wording on your white cardstock a few days before your big invitation making day, that way if you run out of ink or change your mind, you have time to fix it!

Step Five: Give each person a different job. For us, one person cut the blue cardstock off the sample piece, one person cut the cardstock, one person cut ribbon, one glued and folded. It was a big job.

Step Six: Assemble the invitation, you can kind of see from pictures how you would put it together. The blue cardstock was one big piece folded twice, lace was one long piece glued from behind where the words started and around the front part, white cardstock with writing glued to that, finishing touch: fold them! 

So for all 135 invitations it took about 8 hours with four people 100% dedicated to work on them. It was a long night, but I think worth it. I LOVED my invitations, and they would have been triple the price in the store with the folding and lace. The price I included above was not including postage, which was a tad more for the square shape, but if you don't care about the shape you can figure out how to do it with a regular shaped envelope that wouldn't be extra! Watch the weight though, that is where they can get you! So what do you think? Need help planning out the details? Let me know!

Thanks for crafting with me,

- Olivia