DIY-ers, how did you print your invites?

baystateapple

FI and I bought the paper for our invites from cardsandpockets.com, and now we're about ready to get them printed.  I went to Staples yesterday to price out how much it would be to print them.  To print JUST the invites (not the RSVP cards or the RSVP envelopes), it would be $62.  To print everything, it would be close to $180, which puts our invite budget at over $250 -- something we were trying to avoid.

I'm planning now on hand-addressing the RSVP envelopes, to try and save money, but we still need to get the invites and the RSVP cards printed.  Is $62 for 120 invites normal?  Does anyone know of a cheaper place to get invites printed?

TIA.

ETA: We don't have a printer, so making them at home isn't currently an option.

pirategal03

Is there a local print shop you could contact?  Somewhere that's not a national chain.

Beachy730

If you are planning on getting all of that done, you may want to look into buying a printer.  It very easily could be cheaper to buy a printer and ink than get them printed.  Plus then you could save money by printing your own programs and place cards.  We had planned on going to Kinko's for our invites but when I brought them there they told me our cards were too small for their copiers.  So after a brief break down I went and priced printers.  I almost bought one then MOH offered her printer.  They were surprisingly incredibly easy to print myself, and cheap. 

baystateapple

Dnbeach -- I started pricing printers online after writing this.  That might be the best way to go.  It's not like we couldn't use a nice printer afterwards.

Would you recommend an inkjet or a laserjet for printing invites?

Pirata13

Try posting on your local board to see if anyone can recommend a local independent print shop.  We got our invites at Michael's, we set up all the wording etc ourselves. My parents set it up with the template on flash drive and took it to a local printer.  For 120 invites, RSVPs and directions/info cards, it cost us $80.  And they turned out beautiful. We definitely saved some money since we had everything loaded on the flash drive for them.  Good luck.

Beachy730

The printer we used was an inkjet and they came out great.  Hope that helps!

cmeyer3946

I just went thru the same mess.  It was going to be over $200 to print just the invitations and reply cards at Office Depot.  We decided to go the printer route and after buying an inkjet and promptly returning it the next day, I HIGHLY recommend going laser.  We bought the Brother HL 3040cn color laser for $174.99 at Staples on Saturday.  The invites came out so wonderfully and took about 15 minutes to print 350 prints.  I'm actually excited to start working on the programs and other print things.

alecat9

It was under $120 to print at cards and pockets enough invitations for 105 guests (each invite had a rsvp card, directions, and accommendations, plus invite adn came precut). C&P supplied the paper for that price as well.
I don't have any advice on quality of printer other than to check the cost of print cartridges before you buy so you know what you are getting in to. Good luck.

squirrly

I spent $59 to get ours printed at OfficeMax, and they were color printing, too.  I took in paper I ordered from c&p as well.

Is your paper full-sheet?  Are your invites designed such that they maximize the paper, meaning fewer printouts?  I got 1 invite, 1 accomodations insert, and 1 Directions/Map insert on one page, plus 5 RSVP cards on another page.  So, for 80 invites, I needed 16 single sided color prints, and 80 dual sided (color on the front, b&w on the back) prints. 

Templates in my bio, if they're helpful.

And, make sure they're giving you credit for bringing in your own paper, if you are.  Also - I've found OfficeDeopt and OfficeMax to be a fair amount cheaper than Staples, when I've price compared.  I used OfficeDepot for our TYs, and they were half the price of Staples.