Invitation Cost

jessica2244

Hi ladies! I'm having a friend do my invitations for me (they came out AWESOME btw!) and I want to make sure I'm not getting over charged. They're pretty formal and are enclosed in a little package (you open it and there's the invite, RSVP card, accomodation info, etc etc.) and the invite itself has beading on it and a little flower. I'll prob need at least 150 invites, if not more and she said she won't charge me more than $500, but maybe less. Is this a lot for invitations like this? 

mpickl

It sounds like they are pretty elaborate. I am DIYing my invites and we are doing pocketfolds, which is the bulk of the cost ($2 per envelope). With postage, my invites will be somewhere around the $2.65 mark -- I need 100, so I'll be spending about $265-275.

You might want to look on some invitation sites for something similar to what you are getting and see what the 'pros' charge. This seems a little high to me, but expensive invites were never in our budget. 

BostonGIrl4732

For starters, it looks like you're from CT.  From what I've noticed, CT can be very expensive for everything in general.  Gotta love living in the Northeast!  Also, the more complicated the invitations, the more they are going to cost.  Enclosures cost more money than just having the invitation.  Next, the formality ups the price too.  If it's got different sorts of paper (higher quality) and takes more to put together, that's going to add up (and it sounds like flowers and beading are going to really up the price).  And finally, the number of invitations matters too.  More invite, more money.  Don't forget that you're going to have to pay postage on all of these (and the heavier they are, the worse postage is going to be).

I think that if you get a quote, it's up to you to accept it or turn it down.  Have you gotten quotes from other vendors in the area?  Have you looked into other possible options?

I'm paying about $120 for my invitations (there's 100 of them).  I ordered off Vistaprint and used a Groupon.  I have the invitations, RSVP cards, Reception enclosure cards, and Thank You notes (debating dropping the Thank You notes and getting some cheaper ones elsewhere).  The paper quality is OK (we got better quality for the invitations themselves, but not the extra cards) but nothing fancy.  We chose a more formal design, but they aren't overly formal in anyway.  We sacrificed some quality in order to get a great deal.  We'd rather put that money elsewhere in our budget.  We added the cost that we saved on invitations to our transportation budget so that we can rent a fancy car to take us to the reception.  We figured that everyone is going to probably throw out the invitation anyway.  Others would disagree and argue that invitations are more important than transportation (or whatever).  It's all up to you and your FI.

I think for what you're describing, you probably got a good price.  You don't have to spend that much for 150 invitations though if you don't want to.  I'd personally get a few quotes for about the same thing so I'd know if I was getting a good deal.

Sara G to be

I spent about $30... We are having about 60-70 guest and we are infomral. I did mine on vistaprint with the groupon and retailmenot. Got the invites, rsvp postcards, and thank you postcards for 30. I myself couldn't see spending that much on something people are going to throw away, but that just my opinon... Good luck and it sounds like a pretty good price for those invites.

Jlp818

We are going to a local stationary store and are paying about 3.80 an invite.  Ours are semi elaborate with pearl paper.  So really around 418.00 before postage.  I wish I found one I liked on vistaprint so I could have saved alot of money like the other girls but it just didn't work out like that. 
So 500 for 150 invites handmade makes sense to me.

jessica2244

@Jlp you make me feel not-so-bad lol! 

thanks everyone for your help!! it was much appreciated!

era62286

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-club-boards_september-2013-weddings_invitation-cost?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20Club%20BoardsForum:26a515ec-8009-4599-b81d-5edee3b3fb3cDiscussion:ae510a5a-c477-4015-a8b2-21fecff8e209Post:243c4d2c-136a-472d-a528-20df077751d6">Re: Invitation Cost</a>:
[QUOTE]@Jlp you make me feel not-so-bad lol!  thanks everyone for your help!! it was much appreciated!
Posted by jessica2244[/QUOTE]

<div>It's not bad. I budgeted $300 for 100 invitations and other stationary. I designed them myself. I'm even printing some things at home and on vistaprint. We are not doing anything with a pocketcard or inserts. Just flat invitations and RSVP. </div>