Wedding: the paper goods

When we began planning the wedding, I had it in my mind that I would create all the paper goods myself. But when it actually came down to it, I realised that I just didn't have the patience nor the skills to design and compile 100 invitations and other assorted stationary. So my next port of call was to investigate getting a professional to do it for me. To be honest, I was absolutely shocked at the prices I found. $10 for just one invitation without the additional envelopes, insert cards, directions etc.? That's crazy talk. I appreciate lovely stationary as much as anyone, and spend copious amounts on my own personal stash, but to part with that amount of cash for something that most people would throw away after the event was just way outside my budget. (But if I had the money available I would have splashed out nonetheless, and appreciate all the time and effort that goes into lovely custom invites. It was just out of the question for us.)

I began to explore other options, and I got pretty interested in the concept many etsy sellers have of offering customisable set invites that you print yourself. It works like this - buy the template, send your specifics to the designer to make the invite your own, and then take the pdf to a printer. I ended up saving so much money by doing it this way, and I was really happy with the design itself - it matched our colours/theme perfectly. The great thing was that the seller I used, Yellow Brick Graphics, had a whole suite of different types of stationary in the same design so I could coordinate the invites, programs and thank you notes to match. The designer Mickenzie even created two custom signs to match, one for the ceremony and one for the order of events at the reception, which we placed on an easel.

Now, here's what didn't go so well about this process - the printing side. Knowing next to nothing about printing and paper stock, I contacted a printer and advised I would need some help on choosing a stock. I explained that it was for wedding invitations, I wanted something thick and high quality to give that luxe, wedding-y feel. What I ended up with was not really what I was after. It was still nice, but could have been at least twice as thick. And for people who supposedly print invites all the time, I felt a bit let down that they didn't point me in the right direction. Next time I would definitely go and feel the paper stocks in real life before trusting their opinion. Also, the paper stocks for the invites, programs and thank you cards were all somehow different even though I asked for the exact same thing.

I loved the paper goods we ended up with and managed to save an incredible amount of money, I only tell the downside to serve as a cautionary tale for any brides considering doing this themselves!

photographer: Christine Lim / paper goods: Yellow Brick Graphics