Money
Easy Ways To Spend less On Wedding Invitations (5)
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
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 costly, 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:
- Digital invitations
- Simple designs
- Coupons and promotions
- Doing it yourself
- Wedding websites
Let’s dive right in, and hey, congratulations!
- Use Digital Invitations
In this day and age, no one is expecting a traditional, physical wedding invite. Among the best ways to spend less 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.
Pros
- Pretty much the cheapest choice, and can even be free (or close to)
- Easily trackable RSVPs, and other replies
- Environmentally friendly
Cons
- Some people may prefer physical invitations
- Difficult to DIY
- May be confusing for older guests
- Use a Simple Design
- Getting a physical invitation is exciting, and a lovely keepsake
- Clear, attractive, and still personal design
- Often recyclable (if your guests don’t want to keep them!)
- Still costly (though nothing compared to “fancy” invitations
- Fewer choices for customization
- Shipping costs and organizational stress
- Check For Coupons
- Keeping more cash, and getting the most bang for your buck
- Many different card choices, styles, and customizable designs
- Stamp and mail for me choice (on Shutterfly at least)
- You may have to wait a while for the right coupon or promotion
- However, there are very few cons to spending less on your invitations without sacrificing anything!
- DIY Your Invitations
- The cheapest physical invitation choice be far
- Extremely personal, adding a lovely touch
- Fully customizable
- Very time consuming, especially for larger weddings
- Can be difficult to organize
- Costly shipping, and material costs
- Check Wedding Websites
- You own digital hub more all things wedding
- Amazing bundle deals with wedding invitations, along with save the dates, wedding vendors, venues, decor, and much more!
- Cohesive and easily flowing wedding build up, and place to share and reminisce after the event
- Having just a site alone may be seen as low-cost or not formal enough
- Older guests may have difficulty utilizing the site (or, more likely, agreeing to do so rather than dealing in person or over the phone.)
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 mix 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.
Among 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 often 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.
When the receipt is in, 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!
Pros
Cons
When you are sorting out your wedding invitations, like with all your other wedding expenses (and we know there are plenty 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 a choice for them to mail the invitations out for you.
When you’re working on a tight budget, time becomes your most precious resource. It’s really key 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.
Pros
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 applying, envelopes, shipping or stamps, and any ink, photographs, or other decorative features you want to include.
Making your own invitations is plenty of work, so be careful not to bite off more than you can chew.
While it’s definitely doable, it might be a better choice for smaller, more intimate weddings.
Once you start getting over fifty guests, it becomes very tedious and time-consuming, along with 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.
Pros
Cons
Another excellent way to bundle and save on your wedding invitations is to use a wedding site. 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, along with view the official photos after they are released.
However, many people find that just having a wedding site is not enough.
Sending a link might feel low-cost 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 site instead of invitations and save the dates.
If not though, you can still use a site 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 site as a place for more details.
This means you don’t need to overcrowd the invite with things like venue details, and you won’t need to be fielding as many calls for questions from confused or anxious guests.
Additionally, many wedding site 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 site design. You can even get the link or scannable QR code for the site printed straight onto your invitations or save the date cards!
Pros
Cons
Final Thoughts
There are so many different ways to keep more cash 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 site, there’s a cost saving style that will work for you.
