Am I calculating this correctly?

hendersonsarah

I am going through the calculations to DIY our wedding invitations. Keep in mind we are having a very large wedding so will need about 200 invitations.

Every website that I've been on to order paper etc etc comes to a total of $350-$450.

I just got a quote from a woman that makes invitations and she quoted me $380 + taxes.

Is this true? Since we are having a large wedding, is it possible that DIY is more expensive??

agnes16

Im doing my own invites and its much, much cheaper for me to DIY.  Which sites are you looking at to order paper? What paper are you looking for?  What types of invites are you looking to have (pocket fold, flat...)

hendersonsarah

How many invites are you doing? I'm looking at Pockets & Cards for paper.

Approximately how much are your invites costing you?

Because the company I found is pricing me under $500 and that's how much it's going to cost me to do invites..

agnes16

I'm doing 170 pocket fold invites with 4 inserts.  Its costing me around $2 per invite.  I bought the pocket folds from http://paperandmore.com/ (similar to pockets and cards but they do not ship to Canada so if you have family/friends in the USA they can always ship to you).  I found the cost of shipping at pockets and cards to be outragous (about $100). 

Pocket fold: $0.80
paper: $0.38 per invite (1 need 1 and half pages to make all the inserts in the invite)
belly band: $.02 per invite
printing: $0.52 per invite at professional print shop.  I may try pringing myself if my printer accepts the thicker cardstock paper

So thats $1.72 per invite.  Including glue and jewels which i might add, I'm guessing no more than $2 per invite.  Thats not including stamps.  The cheapest pocket fold I was quoted was $5.50

melfacto

I need to do 150 invitations and I've priced it out DIY at about $300 -- this is for pocket invitations -- could you share the contact for the lady that quoted you the $380?

agnes16

Thats pretty much how much mine will cost $2 per invite (150 at $300). 

Paper damsels:  http://www.paperdamsels.com/Documents/PaperDamselsPrices2011.pdf

I'm not sure how many inserts these prices include

Jewel224

Hi ladies - don't forget to include the time it's going to take to make the invites.  In your quote, Sarah - are you comparing apples to apples?  For example, the paper you're ordering, is it already cut to size?  If so, then that will be more expensive.  If you get a larger size and cut it yourself, it will likely be cheaper.  Other things to consider with your quote - what are you getting with it?  Inner envelopes, outer envelopes, thank you cards, etc.?  Keep that in mind as well.

naomikb

Yes, it's possible that DIY costs more.  Invitation makers can buy in bulk and have other connections that get them cheaper supplies.

$380 for 200 invitations sounds amazing to me!  I think you should snatch it up.

Sarah - have you accounted for printing in your DIY estimate?  I severely underestimated how much colour printing would cost for my wedding papers.

emmuffy

We made our own invitations using inexpensive cardstock on sale at Michael's as a base, with a Martha Stewart punch (to make fancy edges) also from Michael's ($35). The wording itself was colour laser-printed on smaller pieces of thick white paper at a cheap copy centre, and glued onto the cardstock. I think we spent around $1 per invitation without the stamps.

hendersonsarah

I haven't accounted for printing cost and ink cost as of yet...However the quote that I got from the invitation company includes outer and inner envelopes....

I am going to go over the calculations with my mom this weekend to see what the best decision is for us realistically

Thank you so much for everyones help!

Jewel224

How did the calculations come out?