Wedding Plans: Saving Money on Invitations

We've done lots and lots of wedding planning lately! Our biggest update is that our wedding invites have been sent! Here's how we did invites on the cheap!

First, we went to Etsy and perused their invitations. We found some really cute ones with a flag banner and little birds on them that we liked. They are very simple, but cute. The cost to personalize them and have the file emailed to us as a pdf was $12. I went ahead and added on the thank you notes and programs as well, which were $5 and $10 respectively. So, we spent $27 on that part.

Then, I went to the print center at Biola, the college I went to. They worked with us to print our invites and thank you notes, which included the cutting and folding as well. Including tax, I paid $45 to have them printed. I haven't had the programs printed yet because I haven't figured out what I want on them. That's my project for this month!

I ordered envelopes for both the invites and thank you notes on Amazon for about $15. So, we've spent a total of about $90 so far, BUT that includes our thank you notes and the program design. I'm guessing our programs will cost another $20 or so to print.

I addressed the envelopes myself and didn't do the double envelope thing. Honestly, people are just going to throw them away and my writing is semi-decent, so I was fine with that. Invites just aren't something I care too much about, and the envelopes are definitely at the bottom of my list of concerns.

We also saved by making our RSVP online, rather than printing another card, buying envelopes and putting stamps on them. I used weebly.com to make a website that includes a map of our location, our registry info, and an RSVP form. All of the RSVP's go straight to my email. We figured only our grandmas might have trouble with the online RSVP, but we know they're coming, so it should be fine. :)

We could have kept it super cheap if we ONLY did invites, but I figured since we'll need thank you notes and programs anyway, it made sense to go ahead and get it all at once, so that they will all coordinate. I'm happy as well, because I think we will spend the same amount on all three things that many people just spend on invites.

I think the fiance spent about $20 on stamps as well. But, there were a few extra that a stole to send out thank you notes for my shower.

How much did you spend on wedding invitations? Are you traditional-wanting the double envelopes, calligraphy, etc.? Or are you more like me?