When I got married 22 years ago, I hired an artist and calligrapher to design my wedding invitations. My wedding invitations were beautiful and unique; they were also expensive. Today many engaged couples who want the ultimate in creative options for their wedding invitations opt for printable wedding invitations. Printable wedding invitations not only allow for a tremendous amount of flexibility, they are often much cheaper than traditional wedding invitations.
Here are some things to keep in mind if you choose printable wedding invitations for your special day.
Printable Wedding Invitations Tip #1: Choose Quality Paper
Many people fear that if they go with printable wedding invitations, their invitations will look cheap. The best way to avoid cheap looking printable wedding invitations is to start with quality paper. You can also choose coordinating envelopes, and can even find kits that match the paper with the envelopes for your printable wedding invitations.
Printable Wedding Invitations Tip #2: Use a Good Quality Printer
Printable wedding invitations will save you money, but they won’t look cheap if you choose to use a good quality printer. If you have access to a laser printer, that is your best option for your printable wedding invitations. If you don’t have a laser printer, your local Kinkos (http://fedex.kinkos.com/locations/) will allow you, for a fee, to print your invitations using their top quality printers.
Printable Wedding Invitations Tip #3: Use Software for a Professional Looking Layout
Unless you’re extremely skilled in layout and design, you might want to go with software well suited for printable wedding invitations. Uprint.com is a good choice for this.
Printable Wedding Invitations Tip #4: Practice on Cheap Paper
You’ll seldom get your printable wedding invitations right the first time around, so print some practice runs on regular, inexpensive paper such as copy paper. You don’t want to go through a lot of your expensive specialty paper when you are testing out your printable wedding invitations.
Printable Wedding Invitations Tip #5: Have Several People Proofread Your Invitations
All of us make mistakes, but you sure don’t want to have typos on your printable wedding invitations. Before you mass produce your printable wedding invitations, have at least a few people proofread your invitations.
Printable Wedding Invitations Tip #6: For Ultimate Savings, Use Free Websites
Southworth, a company known for good quality paper has an excellent choice of free printable wedding invitation templates. The Southworth website (http://www.southworth.com/page.php?id=128) has several templates suitable for printable wedding invitations, including templates for invitations from the parents of the bride, invitation templates from the couple, templates for the response/reply card, etc. The Southworth website also has customer service representatives available each step of the way to help you, should you have any problems creating your printable wedding invitations. The Southworth printable wedding invitation website even provides a guide for wedding invitation etiquette. Although there are other free printable wedding invitation websites out there, none of them compared to the quality and ease of use of the Southworth free printable wedding invitation options that I looked at.
Printable Wedding Invitations Tip #7: Use Commercial Printable Wedding Invitations
If you’re unsure of your ability to create quality printable wedding invitations using a website with free templates, selecting your own paper, etc. various companies provide commercial printable wedding invitations.
Here are some companies to consider when purchasing printable wedding invitations
InvitationKitsDirect.com has a wide variety of printable wedding invitations to choose from. Invitations start at $6.95 for 10, with the most expensive invitations running $29.95 for 10. Their instruction page includes free printable wedding invitation templates as well.
LCI Paper (http://www.lcipaper.com/weddingens2.shtml) also has a wide variety of printable wedding invitations, including among other things, traditional, seasonal and even international printable wedding invitations. At the time that I checked, they even had a good assortment of printable wedding invitations on clearance, with the lowest priced ones at a very affordable $16.80 for 50 printable wedding invitations. The highest priced invitations I saw on the site cost $125.25 for 50 printable wedding invitations. Out of all of the sites I visited, LCI Paper had the biggest variety of printable wedding invitations. The site also included tutorials. Although there may be some exceptions, all of the wedding invitations I looked at on the LCI Paper website were kits, and included the invitations and the envelopes.
My Expression (www.myexpression.com) also has a good assortment of printable wedding invitations, but I was not as impressed with the quality or the selection as I was with the LCI Paper site. The site was also harder to navigate, but if you don’t see what you want on the other sites listed, My Expression may be worth a look.
If you want to be able to see and touch printable wedding invitations in person before purchasing them, you might want to go to an office supply store, such as Office Max, Office Depot, or Staples.
Whatever you do, have fun as you design your own unique, printable wedding invitations for your special day.
Sources:
http://www.invitationkitsdirect.com/wedding/
http://www.myexpression.com/weddinginvitations.cfm
http://www.wedding-ideas-and-details.com/make-your-own-wedding-invitations.html
