Invitation Composition: Assembly

Our invitation suite was seriously a struggle for me but I couldn't be happier with how they turned out. Obviously they are my invites and I love them so if these aren't your style no hard feelings if you skip this one. As a reminder:

Let's just dive right in.

Our invitation suite was ordered from Rebecca from mycharmingprints on Etsy. She was incredible to work with and gave me 2 additional cards for no charge. She also changed the design to match the colors I requested, and oh yeah did I mention she did it all within 24 hours?! Honestly she is fabulous and I would use her again in a heartbeat. 

I printed our invitations from U-Printing because I had a coupon and heard good reviews. I would recommend signing up for email lists; they send you coupons or promotions and it's a great way to save some cash. I was slightly apprehensive since I don't know a danged thing about printing and whatever other nonsense they ask you about, but I was incredibly pleased with the outcome. 

The outer envelope was from Envelope Mall, in their Curious Metallics line, color Ionized.

 Now I printed these myself in our basement, where our printer is located. I laid them out to dry and then stacked them up until we were ready to use them. Do you see where I am going with this? Imagine my surprise when it came time to assemble our invites and some of the envelopes were already sealed!? I wasn't thinking about the fact that it was spring in Minnesota and very humid, especially in our basement. Stacking them like I did was a disaster waiting to happen. I spread them out upstairs and was able to salvage most of them but I did have to reprint some. So tip number one - make sure you have extra envelopes for mess ups!

Don't stack your envelopes for an extended period of time if you can avoid it. You don't want to have them seal themselves (there may have been cocktails involved after I realized my mistake - regroup and recharge and all that goodness). 

The inner envelope was another Envelope Mall purchase, the Euro Flap Stardream Metallic in Lapis Lazuli.

They are much darker in person. I wanted a dark navy and these did not disappoint; they had a nice shimmer to them too. I also used a wax seal with the same pattern as Mrs. Goat. I got the stamp and wax via a Weddingbee Classified ad way back in the beginning stages of our planning, knowing that I wanted to use it on something.

I followed the same instructions the lovely Mrs. Waterfall and many Bees before me suggested. Although instead of a plate we went with wax paper so we could get a bunch of them quickly and it worked really well. Sadly after making these my glue gun bit the dust (at least it waited until after I was done)!

We went with a stacked design because I wanted to keep everything fairly simple with just a few eye catching elements. Not to mention that throughout my research, I realized that I could run into a postage problem by having the pocket fold I originally thought about. I didn't want to have to spend more than I had to so this option worked best for us.

As you can see we added an envelope liner. I ordered silver wrapping paper as a way to save some cash and it worked out very nicely. Had it been the holiday season, or had I actually known what I was going to do earlier, I would have purchased the wrapping paper during the winter months to save even more money. For those looking to do an envelope liner, I would highly suggest using wrapping paper.

 I was a little apprehensive ordering it online, since the stock picture was not very detailed but I am very happy with it. For those of you wondering, we were able to get 30 liners for an A7 envelope out of 1 roll. Mama Barn figured out the best pattern to get the most out of each roll. I ordered 5 rolls and was able to get enough for 150 envelopes including some test templates. 

Breaking this down budget wise we did pretty well:

Outer envelope - Envelope Mall: $63.12

Inner envelopes Envelope Mall: $55.77

Silver wrapping paper - Paper Source: $61.57

Ribbon - Koyal Wholesale: $49.00

Forever Please Mini-Moo: $64.68 (250)

Invitation design - Etsy: $25 

Invitation Printing (3 different cards) - U Printing: $172.71

Wax & Stamp - $17.84

Postage - $216.05

Grand total: $725.74 for a total of 200 invites 

Total cost per invite: $3.63

This was still cheaper than anything I could order online, that I liked, and even though it wasn't a full DIY I am incredibly happy with the way they turned out and hearing how much our guests loved them only makes it better!

I owe a huge thank you to Mama Barn who actually assembled the bulk of our invitation suite. Since we live 6 hours apart (total bummer) she really wanted to do something to contribute and this was the perfect chance. Everything I ordered was shipped to her and she (and even my Bro) put together everything except the wax seal, the outer envelope, the stamp and sealing.

Did anyone else have any invitation headaches? Did you come in under budget with your invitations?