DIY Invitations (not kits I mean hand made!!)

We will be. We have a friend who is a graphic designer and we will be buying and cutting the card stock ourselves and printing everything out from scratch. Will it be cheaper - LORD yes - but I think whether it is or not for other people depends on how much you really want to put into it. It's going to be a LOT of work, so you definitely need to be ready for that!

My DIL made ours and I LOVED them. She already had a cricket so that helped her. We just bought the cardstock, vellum and envellopes and she designed them all, including embossing. So I don't think it would necessariy be more expensive but it does take a lot of time!

Let me switch to my other laptop and I will post a pic...

Here you go:

Wow - Linda! Those are crazy beautiful! I don't think ours are going to look that good (which is a bummer because the design our friend has come up with is amazing). You DIL did an amazing job! How many labor hours did this take?

I made my own invitations. I designed, printed, and assembled them all myself. I ordered all of my paper and envelopes from www.paperandmore.com

Overall it probably cost me about 150 dollars for 50 invitations, though maybe closer to 200 after buying all of the my ribbon roses trim (including inner, outer and response envelopes). Not super expensive. I could have ordered both cheaper or expensive ones online. However in all my my DIY for my wedding, DIY was never to save money but rather so it would be exactly how I wanted it.

More photos...

I was going to make ours completely from scratch, but with the living social and groupon deals I just did ($27 for $120 worth of items) I'm going to order the stationary from VP and maybe even order pocketfolders from cardsandpockets.com (just found out about them and ordered some samples). I'm DIYing alot for the wedding, but this is as DIY as I'll get for the invitations, lol.

Linda and Mrs. O, those are beautiful.

I would love to DIY my stuff but I am not the artsy type.

Nancy, some can DIY and it will come out cheaper but for me, I know it will be end up being more than purchasing them already made.

@Mrs O - LOVELY! So pretty!

@HoundMomma - I will have to ask her as we live in different states. I do know that she was able to make me 3 extra ones and it took her about a week, but she has 3 girls who are very active so she probably had to do them once they were all tucked away in bed LOL!

Wow those are beautiful! Thank you all so much for your input. I need to take a breather & think about it. :p

Mine are what I consider DIY. A friend designed them or me nad i had them printed on special paper at the local university for cheap. Then we assembled. I just posted in a thread earlier today. I'll attach a picture here(im still quite happy about them); If you inbox me i can tell you where to get paper for super cheap and nice paper.

We made ours from scratch! I had my Bridesmaid do the watercolour for it. Used a typewriter for the reply card on library cards I got from Etsy, My DH designed the text and directions card, I got the library card cut out online and just printed off cool patterns to make them out of. I picked up old books from goodwill to do the inside of the library card pockets and bought doilies from Etsy to tape onto the envelopes! It was a lot of work, but it was fairly cheap (We paid 200 for all the supplies. We made 75 but had the supplies for well over 100) and it allowed us to give our guests an idea of what our wedding was going to be like!

@Alex -- I loooove yours!! They're so awesome!

I'll be making our invitations. I designed the invites and wraparound labels. I purchased paper, envelopes, and labels and we'll be getting them printed from Staples or something. It will end up being way cheaper than purchasing similar invites.

I'm thinking of doing this for our vow renewal. I also love yours Alex, so oroiginal!

@Mrs. A & LadyHopkins thanks! I highly recommend it to anyone thinking of doing it.. It's a lot of work but it really does set the tone for the wedding and you're able to put your personality into them Just like all the ones posted above! So beautiful, unique and creative! Definitely puts a smile on my face when I get any type of homemade card in the mail.

I have another option for you.

I create really cool, animated hand drawn wedding cards/invitations/announcements. They are fun and very popular with social media and email sending...and no postage..

We also do all occasion cards and announcements.

We may have just what you are looking for!

Pat