Invitation Question

KarleeKrause35

Hi guys! FI and I have started thinking about invitations, and I am super confused by the entire idea. I've been looking online and some of the ones I've found are gorgeous, but I have absolutely no idea what is a reasonable price and what is outrageous. If I knew what to expect, I would know if I was being ripped off.
So, help me? I'm inviting 150 guests. For everyone who has ordered their invitations already, what is the size of your wedding and how much did you pay total for invitations? Did that include reply/thank you cards as well?

Thank you!

Amanda1443994

We haven't ordered ours yet because we're still finalizing the church/times but we did pick them out. We're ordering them from mygatsby.com and we're getting Pocket Invitations. I posted below our design but ours will be in different colors than the gold that is shown. After pricing everything out it came to just over $500. We're having about 150 guests, but we only needed 80 invitations. They didn't include thank you cards. I honestly have no idea what is an average price though or what's too high.

KarleeKrause35

Oh wow! It appears that I am looking at some pretty expensive ones then, lol.
It's going to cost me $1300 for 150. I thought that sounded pretty steep.

AniaNYC

my top picks are on etsy, and Im looking for about $4.50/per pocket (without thank you cards). I think its really pricy though and still checking out other websites. The $1300 for 150, what is included in each set?

snooks721

We're inviting around 150 so we're ordering 100 invitations. My invitations are very simple, but elegant. No pockets or anything like that. Just white with a nice border. Also, I'm not doing Reception cards either because the ceremony and reception will be at the same place so that cut my cost down too. My invitations are going to cost us around $270.

k8888

My original budget for invites was $300 because I obviously had no idea what these things cost....

When I was researching invites, I was getting quotes from anywhere between $800-$1500 for 125 pocketfold invitiations (including RSVP, reception card, and envelopes).  I ended up designing my own and got them printed/cut through Cards & Pockets.  Altogether, my invites (125) cost me just about $400.00, including shipping, too.  All I have to do is glue/mount/assemble them. 

I would have gladly paid for someone to design them for me, but I lucked out and found a free template online that I really liked.  It was somewhat time consuming, though.

mbody

I haven't ordered any yet and just began looking. I'm hoping to spend around $4-5 per invite. We're having around 200 and ordering about 115 invites. Grand total= $575.

Those are for custom pockets made from a cute local card/stationary shop.

kimmykupcakes

You can a picture of them on my blog, tikilife.  The link is in my siggy. My MOH and I did the artwork for them. I printed them up through VistaPrint.  They were very cheap. I printed up a TON and it was under $100.

KarleeKrause35

This is gonna sound daft, guys, but why are some of you ordering less invitations than there are guests? I am confused lol

LADY324

We are getting a discount on ours because FI's mom's/friend gets them through birchcraft.  We are ordering 175 invites which includes 25 extra then what we need just in case we want to invite more people down the road.  Without the discount it would have been about $600.  FI's mom is treating us to our invites her cost will be $300.  If we had to pay full price I would not have gotten expensive ones.  $300 was my limit.  This also includes the response card, invite, reception card and envelopes with a return address on it.

mekiakoo

We just got ours 2 days ago and we had a total of 1,000 items all together and they included:

1. 150 Invitations with outer/inner envelopes
2. 175 RSVP cards with response envelopes (had to create separate ones, long story)
3. 300 Thank you cards with envelopes
4. 150 Directions/Reception cards
5. 225 Advice cards to use at the reception with envelopes (it was just a simple card with "Advice for the Newlyweds" on the front)

We also ordered 50 extra envelopes for $12 (small and large ones), all of the envelopes were free otherwise.

The total came to $578 with 20% discount, free shipping, and 15% off promo code from David Bridal Invitations

mekiakoo

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-club-boards_july-2012-weddings_invitation-question-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding Club BoardsForum:066005ef-215f-48b1-8655-328b41e07c52Discussion:1e042e31-7035-44dd-86b6-58e833091652Post:cc922ace-4746-4323-942e-e9eea45058f1">Re: Invitation Question</a>:
[QUOTE]This is gonna sound daft, guys, but why are some of you ordering less invitations than there are guests? I am confused lol
Posted by KarleeKrause35[/QUOTE]

We are inviting 220 guests but have 150 invitations because a lot of guests will have dates or be a family (like "The Smith Family"). Don't really need an invitation for every single guest, you know?

Madisonpenny

I bought mine from vistaprint.ca  I ordered 40 invs. and 40 reply cards as well as 40 "reception" cards for those were inviting to the party afterwards. all came with envelops and I paid $120 with taxes and shipping.  I'm pretty happy with them.  Here's the wedding inv. and reply card so you can get an idea.   Remember that you only need 1 invitation per couple, which I think some people tend to forget and then they realize they ordered 1/3 too many, but do get a few extra just incase you need them.

Madisonpenny

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-club-boards_july-2012-weddings_invitation-question-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding Club BoardsForum:066005ef-215f-48b1-8655-328b41e07c52Discussion:1e042e31-7035-44dd-86b6-58e833091652Post:cc922ace-4746-4323-942e-e9eea45058f1">Re: Invitation Question</a>:
[QUOTE]This is gonna sound daft, guys, but why are some of you ordering less invitations than there are guests? I am confused lol
Posted by KarleeKrause35[/QUOTE]

Are you really gonna send one to Mr. John Smith and then another to Mrs. John Smith? you only need to send 1 invitation per couple/household.

Amanda1443994

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-club-boards_july-2012-weddings_invitation-question-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding Club BoardsForum:066005ef-215f-48b1-8655-328b41e07c52Discussion:1e042e31-7035-44dd-86b6-58e833091652Post:3c06b943-007e-461e-9169-2182b35aa5b2">Re: Invitation Question</a>:
[QUOTE]Oh wow! It appears that I am looking at some pretty expensive ones then, lol. It's going to cost me $1300 for 150. I thought that sounded pretty steep.
Posted by KarleeKrause35[/QUOTE]

That price may sound about right depending on what you're getting. I'm ordering 80 invitations for $500 so that seems to be on target with your costs if you are ordering 150 invites. But I would look around anyway just to see.

bridetobe71412

I'm so glad I saw this post. I was wondering the same thing! I was looking to spend about $5 per invite, but we have a lot of complicated stuff (church and reception in separate towns, transportation info, morning-after brunch info) and I'm getting pretty overwhelmed with how much it'll cost to print all of this out, in addition to menus/placecards, etc.

I was actually considering taking a letterpress class at a local place in NYC and then trying to do my own on their machines. It's apparently a studio that allows classes and then allows you time at the coop to use the machines . . . Sounds intriguing. Has anyone done that? Is that too ambitious? I'm just trying to figure out how incredibly hard this would be to accomplish.

Nati05

Well then it turns out your price might be a little lower since you were getting quotes for 150 invites! Look at your list and count how many are couples, families and singles. Somewhere I read said to take that number and add 15% (I think that's the right number) and that's how many you should plan to order. The 15% extra is for mess ups, last minute invites etc.

After Elinetrouwt wonderfully enlightening me, FI and I have seriously been looking into buying a PDF template from an Etsy designer and either printing them at home or most likely taking them to a local print shop. I hear people can use VP to print for this as well. There are some really nice designs ranging from $10-$35. I was sold. As for envelopes and pockets, cardsandpockets.com has really nice and affordable ones in all sorts of colors that we're looking at. For 50 invites, I don't expect it to cost us more than $100, $120 tops.

michelle11988

I just ordered my invites tonight we ordered a set of 100 and it is costing $650~ish including all the printing.  The lady also include a free caligraphy stuff

littlemoments324

I'm DIY'ing mine...I ordered all of my paper supplies (100 pocketfolds, paper & envelopes) from cards&pockets.com for $160 plus shipping.  I'm not sure how much it is going to cost us to mail them yet....but I'm thinking around $200-$250 total.

KarleeKrause35

Thanks so much ladies! You're a HUGE help:)