Anyone made their own invites

Hi There,

We have just made our own save the date magnets and are making our own invitations.

For the save the date cards we literally did a word document with our favourite photo of us surrounded by text boxes (got to be text boxes for the positioning) giving all the details. Printed it off onto photc paper and backed it with grey card (Our colours are grey and blue) and laminated it. We had also bought a roll of magnetic tape from eBay and we've stuck that on the back.

For the invitations, we have 200 to send out, and have bought grey card, blue ribbon and pearlised snowflakes (winter wedding) and are printing an image on the front. We're inserting a plain cream paper in the invitation to ensure the wording is read easier.

All that has cost us around £120 in total!

I'm not very good at DIY so will be getting our save the dates and invites from Ebay/Vista Print. Just an idea incase you decide not to make your own x

Ours are home made, but very simple though. They're a single sheet of A5 300gsm card. They have a lovely colour photo of a far off view of the venue which covers one side, and the front is has all the details, all laid out and designed by my OH in Photoshop/Illustrator. We did envelopes too, printed with a monogram of our initials and the date. For around 90 invitations printed like this they were about £45, most of that cost was ink for the printer.

We are kind of making our own. We picked up 2 packs of DIY cards in michaels craft shop when we where in Florida so all we really have to do is print out all the wording and assemble them the actual cards and everything all have desgines on them and the ribbons ect we just have to print and incert basically but in total its only casting £60 for 50 day invites and a futher 60 evening ones. This includes cards for all the save the dates, menue, replys, directions, general informaion such as hotels, and evening ones and envelopes. we are allowing £40 for all the pistage stamps.

xx

I'd recommend making your own as it's a great little project to get yourself immersed into but just don't go for something that takes too much work and effort as the fun will diminish - trust me!

We made ours - I don't have a pic but, we have a picture of it on the top left of our website : <<removed>> I make cards and do scrapbooking as a hobby so I've a cute little manual machine that made the hearts for me and then just finished the card with an outline sticker at the bottom right. (In fact, my pic on here is a set of the two hearts!)

Some ideas for using a photo:

1. Buy the aperture cards and pop the photo of the two of you in the back. (these are ones like these: http://www.littlecraftybugs.co.uk/moredetails.asp?itemid=7268&utm_source=GoogleBase&utm_medium=organic&gclid=CIaStIH1-bUCFW_KtAodmlAA3Q)

2. Using ordinary white card blanks, you could cut a square of black card, layer it on the centre of the card and then pop the picture on top with 3D foam so it 'comes' out of the card. I can't find an example of this but could mock one up for you so you can see what I mean? I've done these in a larger size when I'm sending birthday cards for small kids!

Not sure if these help but I'll try think of some more & get back to you!

Thank you so much for all your ideas they are fab.

I was kind of thinking more of just like a postcard sized piece of white glossy card with our picture covering the left half of one side and then the important details: date, our names, location etc next to it.

Then on the reverse put a bit more info like directions etc.

That would be fab! Great idea - very low maintenance but with all the 'wow' factor.

I'd suggest looking into pro companies doing them for you versus yourself in terms of cost - if you're printing them yourself, regular printers can swallow ink and become quite costly. I've done a quick google - would it be something similar to this (except in b&w and just one pic on one side)?

When you do have it done, I would love to see it - it sounds pretty cool! ?

Yes that's what I'd envisioned maybe white round the edges so the picture just in a square to the left but really like this one - will mock something up in next few days and post it. Where was this one from?

Have a look on Vistaprint - there's loads of templates you can upload a photo to, and costs will start at around £10 for 10 invitations.

Or if you're good with design software, set out your design in Photoshop (or use GIMP for a free alternative) and send it to a digital printer. We got 40x A5 double-sided for £25 and 40x A6 double-sided for £15, IIRC.

Fab thanks for that - my mate is quite arty in computer programmes so think she will design it then I can get it printed locally.

Sorry for delay! I had saved the pic to my pc but couldn't remember the site - this is it: http://www.lunawebs.com/print-wedding-invitation.php

I reckon, if you do want to print them yourself, there's loads of free programs out there that can design it for you (google for free greeting card makers) or use Vistaprint - it's worth working out the cost v effort before you make your decision.

Your idea souds lovely. I would look into a professional company too though just to compare the prices. We wanted the pocket fold design invites, with an insert info card and an RSVP postcard, they have a lovely cream ribbon and bow around the middle too. For 30 day and 50 evening they are £110 plus VAT. We lookd into doing it ourselves and buying the card alone would cost a fortune.

Being a professional illustrator and designer I will be making my own. (Would be weird not to.) I drafted some very, very rough concept ideas for what I want and I'll work off those, create a nice polished design and go from there. I'll be having a local printer do the printing for me and I'll do the embellishments after.

Rough Design 1

Rough Design 2

Rough Design 3

Often, local printers can offer a better deal than online companies, but I do recommend giving Vistaprint a good onceover. I have also had dealings with Zazzle. More expensive, but the quality is good.

Lannb27 I love these, i'd love to know how you went about designing these? as this is a similar look i was hoping to achieve on a budget. We're having a seaside theme and these would be perfect xx

Thanks everyone for the tips and advice - will certainly check out vistaprint and have a word at our local printers

Here are mine that I made:

https://www.hitched.co.uk/chat/forums/t/365124.aspx