Cards and Pockets Printing Review

Ana_2985 · April 2011

Before I ordered my invitations from C&P, I found a lot of positive reviews on their products here but not many on their printing. I wanted to leave a review in case anyone was thinking of using them. Our invitations are 5 x 7 panel cards layered on one layer of solid cardstock and one layer of the patterned cardstock. I had C&P do the printing and the assembly.

Paper: Great quality and pretty inexpensive. They have free shipping on samples so you can try out different colors first.

Printing: The quality is great. I wanted it to look better than printing on my home computer and it does. It took a few trials to get the colors to turn out right but the proofs are inexpensive. I also recommend printing on the smoothest cardstock they offer (for ivory it's "cream"). It varies by the size, design, and quantity, but the price of my 4 x 6 invite layer was $0.42.

Assembly: Perfect. Everything is cut correctly and the edges of the paper look smooth - like they weren't cut at all. All of the layers are lined up correctly. I know it wouldn't have turned out that way if I did it myself. They charged $0.30 to mount each layer.

People: Also awesome. Everyone I spoke to there was extremely kind and helpful. All of my questions and concerns were addressed right away. REALLY fast printing, assembly, and shipping times too.

You are welcome to PM me if you have any questions! I'll post my reply card so you can see the printing:

Jelenny · April 2011

Good to know I was thinking of getting my RSVP envelopes from there and have them print the address on them for me.

jelybeancg · April 2011

Thanks for the info. After trying to print at home on the samples I purchased from them I was thinking it would be way too much work. Glad to know their printing and cutting worked well.

mandms08 · April 2011

Thanks for posting this. I love the quality of their products but wasn't sure about using their printing. Good to know!

Can you clarify what the $0.42 included? Was it just the printing? Or the printing and invite?

Ana_2985 · April 2011

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_invites-paper_cards-pockets-printing-review?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:cd062f89-8272-496a-b0ab-225e1f87acecDiscussion:2b949348-4636-4926-affb-4844213f1109Post:2cd56068-7897-4c73-90ed-84e958bf208b">Re: Cards and Pockets Printing Review</a>:
[QUOTE]Thanks for posting this. I love the quality of their products but wasn't sure about using their printing. Good to know! Can you clarify what the $0.42 included? Was it just the printing? Or the printing and invite?
Posted by mandms08[/QUOTE]

<div>The $0.42 is the price of the paper AND the printing!</div><div>
</div><div>The $0.30 mounting fee was just for the labor. The metallic mat I used was an additional $0.30.</div><div>
</div><div>So, for example, for a 4 x 6 invite printed and mounted on a 5 x 7 metallic mat, the total cost would be $1.02.</div>

aml242 · June 2012

I had an absolutely horrendous experience with cards and pockets with envelopes and liners for my wedding invitations. I chose to customize the color and provided the cmyk code as they ask, but then they delayed printing for a week and emailed me saying they had not printed because they weren't sure of the code I asked for. I immediately replied confirming the RGB count for the code I'd provided and confirmed. By the time they were ready to ship I was past my goal date for sending out the wedding invitations but there was no canceling the order- READ THE FINE PRINT. There are no returns or refunds on many of their products and anything customized. Finally, when I received the envelope liners they were purple instead of blue. When I emailed my complaint I received no reply. One hundred dollars wasted. Be careful with this company and if you are in a rush and dont have time for a proof that is weeks late, do not use them.

love2singopera · March 2013

I wish that I had read more before I ordered the envelopes and pockets for my wedding invitations from C&P. I purchased almost 700 envelopes and 200 of their Signature Pocket Invitations. While I will say that the pocket material was sturdy and the color was beautiful, the dimensions are absolutely not what I needed. When you click on the pocket that you want, you can scroll down to select the color and order from there. The only dimensions that were listed said that it was 5" x 7," so I assumed that the pocket was going to be roughly the same size. Boy was I wrong. I called customer service asking for a shipping label so that I did not have to pay for their misguided website issues and they were more than unfriendly to me. I asked to speak to the manager, and he practically told me that if I searched all over his website, I would find the dimensions of the pocket that are tucked away under the scrolling header on the top of the pocket page. He offered no sympathy or customer friendliness and told me that I "should't have a problem returning the pockets." I am returning the items today, and will be livid if they say that I did not package the items correctly. I told him that I will never use their website again or recommended them to anyone, and it was as if he did not care. Here goes nothing...

khazelwood1712 · April 2014

I designed an invitation that used a new, gorgeous script font that my client loved. I discovered after this order was placed when I used the same font with another customer, that it was sometimes not rendering correctly, and that a system default font was replacing the script font. For those of you not familiar with this sort of thing, this basically means your computer replaces a font when it has trouble with a one, and often this replacement font is an unattractive serif font. Once I became aware that this issue was occurring, I immediately contacted Cards and Pockets and sent them photos of what the font should look like. I was assured that the photos I sent matched what they were seeing on their end. Relieved, I told them if they matched my photos, to go ahead and print the invitations.

I received the invitations and to my dismay, the font had indeed printed with an unattractive system default font instead of the gorgeous script font. I was very upset because first of all I was assured they would print correctly, and second off, that a company that does the volume of wedding invitations that Cards and Pockets does would not care enough to pause and question something that was so obviously wrong. But if that wasn't enough, to top it all off, the print quality on the invitations faded from the top of the invitation to the bottom.

I immediately emailed the print shop with photos of what I received and (again) sent photos of what it was supposed to look like. I called the next morning as soon as Cards and Pockets opened to try and get someone on the phone to sort this out. Tim at Cards and Pockets took my call first thing that morning, and told me he would get a message to the print shop and have them respond to my email within the hour. I asked if I could speak with the print shop over the phone to solve the problem more quickly, and he told me they could only be reached over email.

I did receive a response and it was not what I would expect from a company that had made a mistake would give. I was told that even though I was assured it would print correctly that the print shop cannot tell if something will print correctly until it prints. This is a ridiculous statement— one does not have to watch 250 invitations, and 500 inserts print before being able to physically see such a glaring error such as the one that occurred with the font. As to their response on the print quality, they said the faded, poor ink coverage was within their quality standards. I was offered 30% off to re-print the invitations.

After this response I replied that I needed the order re-printed and overnight shipped to me at no cost to me — due to both errors being Cards and Pockets'. I continued to email back and forth with the print shop contact, Bonnie, to try and solved this problem. However, the poor print quality was dismissed, and I was told that though assured it would print correctly, that those assurances didn't matter.

Several hours later I spoke with Tim again and was told the manager would be calling me. At this point I realize that Cards and Pockets is not going to fix their mistake, so I had the invitations re-printed locally. The next day I called around end of business day — shocked that the manager still had not called me.

It is a shame that a business that probably made the money back to correct this mistake during the time it took me to write this review is so greedy. I have now switched to Envelopments, and I am VERY pleased.

nebullama · April 2014

@khazelwood1712 What a load of crap! Granted, sometimes things get missed, but yeah, you can absolutely tell if a font is missing or not embedded before the piece prints. The print shop probably should have been able to spot the problem. Although, I obviously don't know what their preflight procedures are. From the sounds of it they may not have any.

I'm guessing you sent C&P a PDF which they opened, told you it looked fine on their monitor, and that everything should be okay. Such a thing would suggest that they really don't know what they're talking about. It also implies that there is a lack of communication between C&P and the printing company.

They should have encouraged you to take a proof. Even a PDF proof should have shown you what you needed to know.

Cards and Pockets Printing Review

Re: Cards and Pockets Printing Review

Choose Another Board

Search Boards