Wedding invitation desperation!

[kellybelly]

in summary, i feel like i''ll never be able to find the invitations i want at a price that''s reasonable. here''s what i''m looking for:

letterpress
100 invitations
reply cards and envelopes
reception card

as far as the design, something with a garden looking floral and/or flourishes. i have been completely unable to find anything for less than $650, and even that was far below any others. i feel as if i''ve looked at THOUSANDS of invites online and nothing fits the bill. the beautiful things are, of course, too expensive.

can someone save my sanity and give me a suggestion to solve this dilemma?

 

[urseberry]

I don''t think three letterpress cards times 100 invitations is possible for $650. Perhaps you could have letterpress for the main invitation card, and use a cheaper printing method for the enclosures?

 

[kellybelly]

ooh, good idea. silly as it sounds, i hadn''t thought of that! would surely drive the price down at least a little bit. hmmm...

 

[cara]

The cheapest letterpress vendor that I found was wildflower letterpress and their quote for 100 1-color 4-piece invites was around $650 (invite, envelope, reply card, reply envelope.) That was over a year ago. I don''t think you are going to do much better than that, and you actually want 5 pieces b/c you want a reception card as well?

Roughly, each additional plate that I requested (for either a second color or an additional piece) was another $100. A second color is a bit cheaper than a separate piece because it doesn''t require buying more paper, but that is a guideline.

Also, working with wildflower is a little different than browsing online. They don''t have a selection of pre-done invites to choose from. They will send you samples of their work to evaluate their letterpress quality, but you either work with them to have them custom design something or you design it yourself and send them the files. I did the later, to get exactly what I wanted, but spend a loooong time on illustrater tweaking everything! I used bought some vector art from istockphoto for $2 and did the layout myself. Also, if you search on weddingbee there was at least one happy bride who used them and posted pictures of her invites.

If you really want to stay underbudget and get letterpress, your best bet is probably to only do the invite letterpress, and use standard printing for the rest. Mercurio Bros. is another inexpensive letterpress option, but you must to all the layout yourself for them. Wildflower was cheaper for my more complicated order ($1000 for 125 sets of 6 pieces: a 2-color invite and the rest 1-color), but for simple orders the two companies were similarly priced.

Good luck!

 

[newbie124]

You may also want to try Subtle Glances. They quoted me $780 for 60 sets of 1-color Save the Dates, invites, reply cards, and direction cards.

I think $650 is a fairly decent deal for custom letterpress. And I agree that maybe just having a letterpressed invite and printed inserts would be a good way to go.

Also, you might save some money buying your own envelopes online (try envelopemall) rather than buying through the stationer.