Linzlars, I have a question for you

Ang2925

Hi Linzlars, I am hoping this isn't a completely rude way to get your attention but I wasn't sure of how else to ask you about your invites. I took some time friday to look over your "old planning blog" and saw the design you used for your invitations. I loved them! A pocket style invitation is exactly what I want to have for my own invitations but I wasn't comfortable with the idea of doing them completely on my own. It seemed that this is exactly what you did though and I have a few questions for you. How many invitations total did you make? What was the average price per invite? The reason I'd like to know is at this time I have given a deposit to someone who will make the invitations for me but I was told that to have a true pocket fold invite it would cost us $8/invite so at this time we are considering a modified pocket fold that she will be charging us $4.75/invite. For the number of invites we need our total is over $600 and if this seems too expensive I'd like to let her know now before she puts any work into them. If you could pass along any advice I would appreciate it. Thank you!!

linzlars

Haha, this is a perfectly fine way to get my attention. If you ever want to try to contact one person in particular, it's fine to put their name as the title of your post (like ***linzlars***) and that will let the other person know the post is directed at them.  You can also email me at linzlars at gmail dot com if that is easier for you, or send me a private message on here (I don't remember to check it very often though!).

My mom actually made my invitations from scratch. I fell in love with the pocketfold design and told her about it, and she came up with some way to make them all. She's an artist and just super crafty in general, so she had a great time designing them, but it did take her hours and hours to make (she obviously wasn't working on them constantly, but I think it took her a good 1-1.5 months from start to finish). I think she ended up making around 75-80 total, and made sure to have like 7-8 extras (definitely have extras made!).  She bought supplies in spurts so I don't think she ever totalled everything up, but she guesses they came out to around $4-5 a piece. I mentioned the quote you received and she thought it was actually reasonable considering the amount of time that goes into making them plus all of the supplies.

If you don't have it in your budget to spend over $600 for them, I'd recommend either doing the modified versions, getting quotes from other people, or even seeing if you can come up with a simpler version that you can do on your own. You can actually buy pre-made pocketfolds online (check out this site for pocketfolds: http://paperandmore.com/products/cards/index.html, and you can look at these for paper: http://envelopemall.com/ or  http://www.anchorpaper.com/retail/paper.htm) Unfortunately I think paying anyone else to make them for you and have them be the full size pocketfold with lots of details are just going to be pricey. If you decide to make them on your own and have any questions for me (or really my mom since I'll direct the questions to her) please let me know! Good luck!

Sharra13

Sorry for butting in, but I also made my own pocket fold invites for my wedding.  It took HOURS and HOURS to do.  I remember sitting there all the time cutting, measuring, pasting, etc.  They  looked great when done, but if I had the money I would have preferred to get someone else to do them after all that.  When I looked around (this was 2007), the average was between $5-10 each online.  I think I spent a little over $200 on all the materials (bit by bit so I didn't realize until later), and I only made about 35ish (hard to remember exactly).  So that's about $5-6 anyway.  Sounds like your quotes were pretty reasonable.  Hope this helps!

Try LCI paper for the pre-cut materials, as well.  It's where I ordered my envelopes from, and I noticed they had some cool options for hlafway DIY invites.

Ang2925

Linzlars, thanks for responding and with the info I needed. I think I was just worried that we were spending too much to have someone else do it but it seems when you look at all the work involved plus the cost of materials that our invitation lady is actually charging us a competitive rate. The good news is I received our sample in the mail yesterday and I fell in love with it all over again, so seeing the invite and reading your advice is putting my mind at ease that we made the right choice. I also to have say by the way that I love your dress! Thanks again for your help!

ScottandCaitlin, feel free to jump in with advice. It never hurts especially when it's helpful and yours was. It seems almost on a daily basis my fiance and I are worrying about one detail or another so it's nice to know there are other women out there experiencing or who have already experienced the joy (or pain) of planning a wedding. Thanks again for your advice!