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invites, STDs, RSVPs

caitydid81caitydid81
First Anniversary First Comment
in Minnesota-Minneapolis and St. Paul
I am finding that most invites are over my budget. We want to keep it at $100 maximum. I am going to have my brother, who is going to school for graphic design, make something for me and then take it to kinkos to be printed on card stock. I am considering having guests email their RSVPs to us (I'd make up an email address) instead of mailing a response card as that would save some money. Thoughts? I want to be frugal, but not cheap.

Second, does anyone have any good ideas for DIY SATDs? I'd like to use an engagement photo as part of it, but I'm kind of drawing a blank. Again, everything seems to cost more than I'd prefer to spend!

Anyone in a similar situation?
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Re: invites, STDs, RSVPs

  • orangemell2012orangemell2012
    First Comment
    I bought templates off of Etsy and designed our invites in Photoshop, we then bought paper at Anchor Paper and are getting them pritned. I should have a proff back this week, hoping they turn out well.

    I would be happy to discuss more if you would like to see an example of the template. Just message me!
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  • jlmccabejlmccabe member
    First Comment
    Hi there! I'm a graphic designer myself. Kinko's and OfficeMax and places like that tend to charge a significant amount more than other places. Try VistaPrint or 123print. I've had great luck with SmartPress.com. Smart Press is an online printer but they happened to be located in Chaska and they won't charge you shipping if you go pick up your order.

    If you're really really interested in saving money, I'd forgo STDs, create a wedding website and email the link around. I personally love getting STDs in the mail, I think they're super fun but making them, printing them, and mailing them really adds extra cost.

    Best of luck!
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  • SSaltzman87SSaltzman87 member
    First Anniversary First Comment
    I'd try Vistaprint! Their prices are really reasonable to being with and have a lot of cute designs for STDs & Invites. Also, there are LivingSocial & Groupon deals frequently for Vistaprint too, those have saved me TONS!
    <a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Money Saving Tips"><img src="http://global.thenest.com/tickers/tt17ce82.aspx" alt="Anniversary" border="0"  /></a>

    White Knot

    Planning Bio-Added FOR SALE page, will be adding more stuff to it soon! 
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  • ShelbyGT21ShelbyGT21 member
    5 Love Its First Anniversary First Comment
    I just bought one of those Groupon's $50 for $10, plus it some how when you checkout add's on discount's at least for me, so i got almost $70 worth of thank you cards and STD's for that $10 plus just $8 for shipping. Pretty dang good deal to me! lol.
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  • mand0114mand0114 member
    First Comment
    Our STDs were postcards, so stamps were cheaper. I also made them in Vistaprint & got them for free from one of their emails. I just paid lik $6 for shipping or something like that.

    We did the same with our RSVP's, used postcards so the stamps were cheaper. I designed our invites & RSVPs in publisher & then bought all the paper from Paper Depot and printed at UPS Store. I made them smaller so I could get 4 pages of my invites on one 8 .5x11 peice of paper, so printing costs weren't too bad. I think all in all I paid a little over $150 + shipping? I was able to make them small/light enough to just need a standard stamp to mail. 

    Good luck!
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  • mbatzlaffmbatzlaff
    First Comment
    We also did STD postcards with our E-pics from Vistaprint. They were really affordable because we used a groupon. We had a local print shop design our invites and bought pockets from cards and pockets so that we could assemble them ourselves. Most of the invites were 2 to a page and the inserts were 3-4 to a page. I'm not sure what the final cost of that will be because we are using postcard RSVPs and still need to get it all weighed/measured for postage on the outer envelope. There are pictures in my bio if you want to see.

    I think email RSVP is ok if you are going for a more casual event. The invitation often sets the tone for the wedding. You could also consider setting up a website for RSVPs or providing a phone number/post card for anyone who is not internet savy.

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  • hippoloverhippolover member
    First Comment
    I did vistaprint postcards for my STDS. Saves on stamps.

    For everything else I did 123print.com.  I was super happy with how they turned out. Free shipping and free envelopes. I got 150 rsvp cards and invites both with envelopes for 117. If I did a phone/email RSVP, I would have saved about $100.00, which was mostly postage.

    I have heard Kinkos can be expensive, but I have not personally used them.

    GL!
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  • bkend879bkend879
    First Anniversary First Comment
    Not sure if you've already found what you're looking for but I found some fairly inexpensive STD's on http://www.snapfish.com.  They have photo STD's for as low as $0.39 each and have some great layouts.
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  • caitydid81caitydid81
    First Anniversary First Comment
    Thanks for the insight. We may just emal STDs after designing something ourselves to save on postage, but snapfish is probably worth looking into. I'll definitely price out Kinkos and that. It sounds like it is a lot more expensive than I originally thought. Thankfully I'm a year out so there's a bit of time left!
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  • sboughtensboughten
    First Comment
    We made our STDs on Zazzle.com and found a great coupon code so they were like half off, plus I did the trial of Zazzle Black and got free shipping (cancelled it right after and didn't get charged for it).
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  • AbeandCarrieAbeandCarrie
    First Comment
    Our STD's were the small magnets from Vista Print.  I send them out with my Christmas cards last year to save on postage.  I am doing phone/website RSVP's and so far they are going really well.  I designed a wedding website for free on www.weebly.com and created a form for the RSVP.  I put the wedding website on the STD magnets as well as the RSVP card.  For the invites, I attended a class at Paper Depot in Minneapolis and decided to design my own.  I did a modified pocket invitation.  I had two inserts, one for the RSVP and one for directions and information.  I neded up getting everything for the invite so it was within the 1 oz weight limit for a standard stamp.  I bought all the paper and designed and prited everything myself.  Paper Depot was really good at helping set up the layout for each part of the invitation so it would be easy to cut to size and assemble. 

    HTH!
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    image 203 Invited so far!
    image 142 Are ready to party!
    image 61 Will be missing out!
    image 0 Are MIA!
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