What is an inexpensive way to create nice wedding invitations?

I saw your article on creating cheap business cards.  I am getting married later this year and creating the wedding invitations is my job.  I was wondering if you had any recommendations on how to create nice wedding invitations, but for a reasonable cost.  I need to create about 200 of them.

Hi Josh,

I think this is an excellent question! Brett and I are also getting married later this year and we plan to make our own wedding invitations as well, but just haven't decided how to do it yet!

We made our own Save-The-Date announcements, which were a success. We took 4 photos of ourselves and using image editing software, made them look like they were taken in one of those photo booths you see in malls. We then attached self-adhesive magnets to the back so people can put them on their fridge. Along with these, we printed some additional information on card stock and tied the two together with some fancy ribbon. At the bottom of this entry I will post URLs for you to see them.

While we're on the topic of weddings, have you hired a wedding photographer yet? What to Consider Before Saying "I Do" to a Wedding Photographer and Questions You Should Ask When Interviewing a Wedding Photographer could help you in this task.

Our Save-The-Date Announcements:

I thought I would post a quick update...

We decided not to make our wedding invitations completely from scratch, tho' we aren't ordering professionally made invitations either. We've found a middle ground that is affordable, not so time consuming and seemingly very easy.

We've ordered an invitation kit made by Wilton. The kit contains 50 invitations, 50 reply cards, matching envelopes and three test sheets. The idea behind it is that once you receive the product, you visit Wilton’s Print Wizard, select your product, customize your invitations and then print them from home. Sweet, simple and won't dip too deeply into your wedding budget pocket!

In fact, making cards from scratch would probably cost just the same if not more, when you take into account the cost of all the supplies (card stock, velum paper, glues, fasteners, envelopes of two sizes, embellishments...) and that’s not mentioning the time it would take to put them all together, especially if you need to make 200 of them!

We also ordered the matching programs, place cards, wedding favours and wishing well card holder.

Oh, and before anyone asks...no, I am not in cahoots with Wilton. This is not a sale pitch! We didn't even order our invitations from the Wilton website, we ordered from eBay.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Hi Rhonda,

Thanks for the info.  Strangly enough, we were in the store (Walmart) this past weekend and saw a bunch of decent looking invitation kits on sale for like $7 a piece so we picked up 5 40 pack kits, giving us 200 invites for $35.  Only after getting them home did we realize they were the same ones you suggest up above. 

What we decided to do is take the invites themselves to Kinkos (a copy place) and have them printed there (.49 cents an invite).  We are then going to use the online Wilton Print Wizard, which was very easy to use, to do the reply cards and envelopes since I am not as concerned about how well my printer does with those.  Interesting note on that, even if we wanted to have Kinkos do the envelopes the lady there suggested not to as their printers don't do well with those envelopes and said they often eat about half of them anyway.  She suggested a standard ink jet printer was the best way to go with those types of small envelopes.

Hey Josh

I didn't see this post or I would have responded a lot sooner. I'm glad Rhonda was able to help and I defer to her wisdom. The only thing I've come across in my travels was at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/527035/printable_wedding_invitations_diy_and.html?cat=23. Maybe that will help. Anyway, good luck and congratulations.