Since we went with a super simple design on the invitation suite, I wanted to add a fun embellishment. I've seen twine used on a few other Bees invites and knew it would be the perfect finishing touch.
I wish I didn't have to blur anything out, because the invite looks pretty blah here, but we used a calligraphy font for our names to make them stand out a bit.
Sometimes DIY projects end up costing more than if you had just purchased the product elsewhere, such as our save the dates. I didn't know if our invites would end up being a savings or if they would end up costing us a ton, but I figured I had no time to figure it out and went head on into the project.
Invitation Budget
- PaperSource
12 packs A7 Night Envelopes (sets of 10)- $3.825 ea @ 10% off, $45.90 total
5 packs A7 Night Flat Cards (sets of 25)- $4.25 ea, $21.25 total
5 packs A6 Luxe White Flat Cards (sets of 25)- $4.00 ea, $20.00 total
5 packs A2 Luxe White Flat Cards (sets of 25)- $3.75 ea, $18.75 total
5 packs 4 Bar Luxe White Flat Cards (sets of 25)- $3.50 ea, $17.50 total
12 packs 4 Bar Night Envelopes (sets of 10)- $2.70 ea @ 10% off, $32.40 total
- Fort and Field on Etsy
Baker's Twine - a ridiculous amount (inc. shipping & taxes)- $28.00 - Michaels
Double Sided Tape (with dispenser)- $4.79 @ 20% off
Double Sided Tape re-fill- $3.99 @ 20% off - Best Buy
Computer Ink- $30.00
Calligraphy Budget
I didn't want our calligraphy too formal, as we are going for a more casual vibe, so I love the font she used. We also had to get the light house stamps to follow along with our nautical vibe. A friend helped address about 35 invites, so I plan to get her a thank you gift, which isn't included in the budget. If we weren't in such a time crunch, I would have loved to have had her do all of them.
- Michaels 12- White Gel Pens- $1 ea @ 20% off, $12 total
- Barbara Kua - Calligraphy Address Stamp (inc. shipping)- $46.00
Postage Budget
- USPS.com- 240- .44 cent stamps (120 invitation stamps and 120 rsvp stamps) $107.60, includes 2 $1 service charges for ordering online
Materials I already owned
Embossing Heat Tool
Starfish Stamp
Embossing Powder in clear
Navy ink pad
White ink pad
Printer
Computer
Scissors
Microsoft Word
Total Cost for invitation materials: $222.58, not including tax for items from Michaels and Paper-Source
Total Cost for Calligraphy: $58.00
Total Cost for Postage:$107.60
Total cost for 120 invites: $388.18, or $3.23 per invitation
DIY invites actually helped us go under budget! Based on research I had done, I was expecting to pay a minimum of $450.00 for 120 invitations that include the outer envelope, invitation, reception card, response card, and response envelope. I also have a lot of left over supplies, like lots of Baker's Twine I plan to use for other projects. The largest expense was the personal calligraphy address stamp, which will also be used for many years to come! I was pleasantly surprised by the final cost of the invitations. Which not only includes the invites, but the calligraphy and postage, as well. It did help that we had many materials already left over from our save the dates, which ended up costing more per card than our invites.
We had originally budgeted $500 for invites, $126.00 for postage and $150.00 for calligraphy. I had thought we'd need .61 cent stamps for the outer envelopes, but we only needed .44 cent stamps, which was a savings. We went under budget by $387.82! We spent about 50% of our expected budget. Which is super helpful, because I'm really nervous we'll be over budget with our guest list.
Did your invites cost more or less than you were expecting?
1 comment:
they came out beautiful!! best of luck!
I am doing my own invitations as well (I will post them on my blog after they've gone out) but I'm finding that they are costing me about HALF the cost of what my sister is paying for her "bought" invitations.
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