Invitation Hell

You know how all those checklists from places like the knot are always telling you to work on your invitations from basically the first month you get engaged? Well, now I know why.... it is complete hell. I started out with a simple and cheap plan for my invitations. I was going to design something easy and have them printed at Vistaprint. Easy-peasy and almost free..right?

Well, fast forward to now. I ended up booking a designer on Etsy to create the invitation files for me. It wasn't that expensive, and I just didn't have time to learn how to use Photoshop. After getting the files back, I waited for a Vistaprint free offer to price out what it was going to cost. Unfortunately, I needed just over 100 invitations, due to my ballooning guest list. Vistaprints free offers are for either 100 small, or 50 large postcards. I would have needed to make multiple orders to print all of the pieces, and the cost went up to ~$80 for all pieces. Now this is not too ridiculous. But I started to second guess myself. I am already spending all of this money, why don't I buy a printer and print them myself? Well, as luck would have it, we received a free printer a few days later. I tried printing the invitations out, and they looked awful. Plus the cardstock wouldn't go through.

Next up, I contacted a few professional printers. One never got back to me, one gave me a quote for ~$150, not including paper, and the third who was a friend of my fiance's gave him a quote of around ~$50. So I ordered some metallic cardstock, and I am patiently awaiting the return of my files. This supposedly cheap and DIY project is costing me WAY more than I thought it would, and I am a little upset about all of the extra work, when in the end I could have just ordered them from somewhere. Hopefully they will be done soon so I can post.

Let's add up the costs in the meantime:

190 cream envelopes bought from someone off theknot: $14
Custom design of invitation card, RSVP postcard, and accommodations card, and monogram: $40
Cardstock(50 sheets of 11'x17 metallic and 50 sheets of 11'x17' linen from paperandmore: $56
Shiny gold wrapping paper for envelope lining: $10
Ribbon to tie around invite: $4
Peacock feathers to tuck into ribbon from Ostrich.com: $20
Calligraphy pens: $6
Peacock feather stamp for outside of envelopes: $12
Gold and green ink pads: $7.50
Printing of invitations: not sure yet- I am hoping for around $50

Total: $219.50 or more
Per invite: (~125) $1.75

Stamps for RSVP postcards: $33.75
Stamps for invites: $42
Total: $75.75
Per invite: .61

Total per invite: $2.36

However, I will have paper left over that I will use for table names and place cards. Not sure yet what I am doing for programs. I will also use the stamps for these other projects. This is far more than my original budget, and seems almost ridiculous to spend so much on pieces of paper that get thrown away.

How much did your invitations cost? Did DIY cost more than you thought?