Belly Bands vs Pockets

I actually love the look of bellybands.

I vote for belly bands also! I love the look!!! And that's what I am doing for mine (bias) Good luck!

I prefer pockets. I like that it effectively provides guests with a little wedding info packet and things are easier to keep together. I think it looks fancier too.

ETA: we also sealed our pocketfold invites with a wax seal, which was inexpensive and fun to do, and which was a big hit with our guests! We got our seal from backtozero.com, and wax beads from a website called Nostalgic Impressions. Total costs for the wax seal and materials was less than $40 and we have a ton of wax left over for future correspondence.

I actually made my belly bands with my Cricut. Do you have one? They really weren't hard to make and it only cost me $3 in cardstock.

I did both!

@Jersey Jen, no, I don't have one--I have zero percent artistic genes The ones that come with my invite suite are pretty.

I just had to go with the pocket. I love the look of the pocket. OOO Elyse, I never even thought of doing both! Now I might have to add a band to the pocket...

Team Pockets here

ETA - I added a band to the pocket too, sort of. It was a piece of twine with a little seal I made.

Why choose...have both We did and I think it turned out beautifully.

To clarify, the pocket I'm looking at isn't a pocketfold--it's just the kind where the invitation is on the front and the pocket is on the back, so a belly band in addition to that wouldn't make sense.

LOVE the pictures you guys are showing me, though!

We're probably doing both. I'm fortunate to have a Cricut, so I'll be making the belly bands.

I love your invitations, Summer.

If you have to choose, I vote belly band.

I saved [some] money by DIYing the invitations, but the pockets do still run about $1 each. And I'm even going for fancy fake-wood-grain ones at $1.15 each. The difficult thing is that the pockets you can order separately from most stationery sites don't fit premade invitations. If you don't mind having 1/4" or so trimmed, you can make pre-done invitations work, but otherwise you're left paying a premium for slightly larger wedding-specific pockets or even more for specially designed-for-pockets invitations.

IMO just belly bands look great, too, and will probably save a lot of money and headache.

@Belle the invite suite I have picked out comes with specifically made pockets.

I must be the slim minority here, but I'm just sticking the invitation in an envelope with the info card and calling it a day. I didn't actually know pockets and belly bands were a thing. What rock have I been under?

I couldn't justify spending the money for either so I'm tying a piece of blue and white striped string around them to keep them together rather than just loosely throwing them in the envelope.

I'm going with belly bands; while I love the look of card pockets, I just can't afford that extra expense and additional weight for postage.

I found some really nice paper at Michael's to make my bands; only needed 7 sheets (8.5x11) to make enough bands. Used a coupon and I think each band comes out to less than 2 cents each.

@Jersey Jen -- those are awesome!! My niece has a cricut; I wonder if I could convince her to make some for me.

Olivebranch, It doesn't hurt to ask her. It was really easy. You just design it with the design studio and click go. The machine does all the work! And check Michael's website, they just had a 40% off sale on paper when I got mine! I'm sure they'll have another sale soon.

I vote pocket, but maybe you could get the effect of a belly band by wrapping a thin, pretty ribbon around it with a bow

To answer your actual question, I vote belly band. Postage is already expensive and I really didn't want to add more postage from the weight of the pocket. Since there's a belly band that matches your invite (and it sounds like you love it) I would say just get that and call it a day!