Paper Depot vs. Stationery Company

shan87

Work is really boring today and its Monday so I have been doing Wedding stuff- Sorry for the gazillion posts today.

I am going back and forth on Invites. I found a design at Watermark Staionery that I love but thought getting 175 in my budget was going to be impossible.
http://watermarkstationery.com/goods/detail.php?catID=2&pNum=2&prodID=125

Well I called them today and got some good news. Although I can't get this exact one w/in my budget. They have an inhouse graphic designer that can get a design very similar and within my budget. (It went from $735 for just the invite from the vendor or $800 for Invite, Response Card, Response Envelope, Reception Card, Direction Card, Thank Yous, and Pocket Envelope to fit it all from the in house graphic designer)

Before I found this out I was going to go to Paper Depot and make them myself somehow. But I haven't looked into them too far.

For those of you Paper Depot Knotties do they have paper with designs on them? Or would I have to stamp this design on it?
suggestions would be great!!

bellaxanthe

I was just there this weekend looking for something different. I don't recall that they had particular stationary with designs already on them.  However they have a billion stamps. And they have a wonderful array of premade examples.  There were a ton that I loved that had I not already started my project I would have changed.  They have some pretty amazing cut out thingymajobbers too.  It's worth a 10 minute trip there just to see before you order. I think mine are costing about $300 for the total thing for about 75 invites. $225 of that I ordered from minted.com for the invites and envelopes themselves and am doing the rest myself.

drdifabio

Two important questions:
1) Do you have room in your budget for $800 for invites?
2) Do you have time for the time it would take to go with DIY invites?

If you answered yes to #1, I would go with the Stationery Company. As much as I love the DIY invites we ended up with they were a PITA to make. We didnt have room in our budget either and couldn't find anything out there they we liked that we could just buy. Since you already found something you like, if it is in your price range go for it. But if not, then DIY might be a great option.

#2 is just something to think about. It took me a TON of time do go with DIY invites and I would guess you would be in that boat too if you end up having to stamp. If you have the time though it will save you a lot of money and then you can make it however you want.

GL and let us know what you end up going with!

wittyschaffy

You could certainly check into graphically doing something similar to your design and having it color printed.  Just a thought. 

shan87

Witty how could I check into graphically doing something similar? as I know nothing about graphical design

shan87

drdifabio i do and don't have it in the budget lol - I originally budgeted for $900 in invites. But as of right now I am $600 over budget which I can absorb or take out of invites since DIY would be a lil cheaper. I certainly have the time but dont know about sanity lol

wittyschaffy

you can get clip art images from online sources (generally have to pay for them but it is not much) and can then plot them out on the page size you'd need for your invites.  You may be able to get an Etsy seller to do something too.  I DIYd my invites but just used a simple cut out for it but I've seen people do all sorts of gorgeous graphics on invites.  The paper on your sample image looks pretty easy to find - just a textured flat color - and if you could get access to the graphic files for something along the lines of what you have on that one, you'd be good to go.  I used word to format my invites but a lot of people who used graphics on theirs used powerpoint I think.  You have more options for putting in images that way. 

lboerner88

I actually enjoyed making them myself...and my thoughts are "why pay someone to do something that I can do myself?" so my vote is DIY  

SuperRNluvsChef

I'm going DIY.  It's just me but I can't justify spending so much $ on paper, that probably no one (except us and our parents) are going to keep.  However, designed invites are very beautiful if you've got the budget for it!

Bimbi284

Another option would be to look into having a vendor on ETSY do them. Perhaps you can give them an image of your inspiration (the ones from the vendor) and see if they can do anything similar. I also did DIY and while I loved how they turned out, they were VERY time consuming. I wouldn't call them a complete PITA, because for the most part, I enjoyed doing it.

Another option would be to do like a half and half deal where you have a vendor create the inserts digitally and then you could have them printed yourself, and perhaps get your pockets and envelopes from Paper Depot or something along those lines.