Wedding Invitations & Paper

Designing your own invitations?

I want my invitations to have an elegant map touch to them. I'm not finding what I like online. Has anyone designed their own invitations? How did you get them printed?
image

Re: Designing your own invitations?

  • What exactly do you mean by a map touch? As in you want a picture of a map to be the background on the invitation? Sorry just wanting to clarify
  • I am doing my own but with Zazzle's looks. Go to Zazzle.com !
  • How handy are you with a computer? I designed my own invitations with Adobe InDesign, but then I just completed a graphic design course for grad school. I printed them myself on a color laserjet (not inkjet) printer. I could have also designed them in MS Publisher, but it doesn't offer quite as much flexibility as InDesign.

    Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • daria24daria24 member
    First Comment First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Answer
    H designed all our paper goods with InDesign. Over printed the invitation suite through Cards and Pockets, which I highly recommend. A few weeks later we ended up buying a really great printer and we did the programs, table numbers, etc ourselves.
    image
  • SBminiSBmini member
    5 Love Its First Comment First Anniversary Name Dropper
    I did a design class in college and have designed a few brochures for non profits over the past few years. I'm thinking something more like a yellowed road map across the top and then a regular invitation, or something like this:

    image
  • I am currently making my own too! Here are some tips I can give to you. This is just what I discovered through alot of trial and error.

    First is, don't use a design which is very heavy on ink. ie. styles with dark backgrounds or other large areas such as navy blue, black, dark purple esp. with trying to use white text. The problem is the printing will come out very shiny even on matte paper due to the high saturation. Also as you may know, you cannot print white. This happened to me and I had to change my whole design. The ppl at office depot said they could not match the quality of printing like that of invitation companies. I would have to use a specialty printer and it would be expensive!

    If you want some color like that, try to pick a color of paper/cardstock which is light enough to read black text on and print onto that.

    In order to incoporate the dk purple I wanted, I opted to use a folding wrap (or pocket fold would work) in a colored cardstock and place the lighter design card inside. This is pretty popular and works well.

    Another tip is dont pick a thickness of cardstock that is too thick. I'd say up to 100lb. is the thickest you should go. Otherwise it seems the paper will get curled up from printing. You can layer cardstock underneath to achieve a more substantial weight to your card, and also add a bit of extra flare to the design. I rec. you test print onto whatever paper you are thinking to use first.

    I just printed at office depot. I use photoshop graphics editor to make mine. But i am familiar with designing. You can find some lovely free templates around! Such as here> http://www.thefreewedding.com/invitations.html
    And etsy designers sometimes offer their digital files for sale for you to print yourself.
    Another idea to decorate your printed card is with stamps! There are many designs availible these days.
  • OtterJOtterJ member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Comment
    We made our own invitations, and while we both have taken graphic design classes, the design/layout was very simple computer/printing wise.  The only thing besides typing that we did was my husband made a tiny map in photoshop, and he also made a design with our initials, and an ampersand in photoshop.  The "cuteness" of our invitations came from cutting, punching, and layering different kinds of paper.  Since they were simple graphic-wise, I didn't have any problem printing them on our color laser printer (we just bought a new one with high dpi) on heavy weight (32 lbs) paper for laser printing.  The heavier weight paper held up nicely, especially since it was layered with other sheets, or on colorful card stock.  I made an earlier version of our invitation using a lighter weight paper, and you could see the card stock color underneath it. 

    I would recommend making your own.  It lets you personalize them beyond what printing companies can do, and I know that ours ended up being much cheaper than anything we could have ordered. 
This discussion has been closed.
Choose Another Board
Search Boards