Do-it-yourself Wedding: buzzword of the year?
We 've been noticing more and more interest in do-it-yourself wedding invitations recently and DIY wedding ideas in general. For example, we ran a story on that, a few weeks ago, featuring Paper Garden, and it has pretty much been the single most popular article in this blog since. So we decided to look into it a bit more, run some "numbers" on the site logs. Very interesting..
..the top two searches on the bride.ca search page in October were ... you guessed it: DIY wedding invitations and Do it yourself wedding invitations! Well, perhaps this is only a new trend in Canada.. how about the rest of the world? So we checked with Google.. same thing: over 15,000 searches, in October alone, for the same two phrases, plus wedding invitation kits. Wow.. it seems like you're trying to tell us something!
DIY Wedding Invitations: Quick & Easy
So we asked all the wedding invitation suppliers in our network (there are almost 300 of them listed in the directory..) for more information: What do you think? Do you carry do-it-yourself kits? Are they a good deal? If not, why not? Here is what we learned:
Wedding Invitation Kits are available everywhere
Many print shops and wedding suppliers, across the country, offer them in various formats, kits, price ranges etc. I guess that is a reflection of their increased popularity. (and why not? all you need is a computer and a laser printer!).
To find one near you, search wedding invitation kits or DIY wedding invitations on our search page. It will give you related articles first.. scroll down to the business listings.
Most of these suppliers will ship anywhere so you may as well look around and find the best style/price combination, but if you 'd rather deal with a place near you then just add your city name to the search, like wedding invitation kits in Toronto for example..
A typical example: Wilton Kits @ The Thank You Company
The invitation picture at the top of this article and the ones right here, are from the Wilton line of DIY kits. We found those at The Thank You Company website. They seem to be exactly what everyone has in mind. Prepackaged, organised, ready-to-go, they look great and you can order them from anywhere, since Thank You has an online store. (they are based in London, ON by the way..). So we asked owner Marney Trotter for the full scoop:
The Thank You Company sells both do-it-yourself invitation kits as well as hand made paper Invitations and Reply Cards that you can print yourself. So many of today's brides and grooms are computer savvy and we started to see a trend towards wanting to print their own invitations on their home computers a few years ago, says Marney.
Before kits were available from big name manufacturers, we developed our own version of print-your-own or do-it-yourself invitations with our hand-made paper Invitation Sets. But when Wilton began offering do-it-yourself invitation kits with templates to download for easy printing, we were really impressed with the quality, variety of styles and their economical price.
Trés Cool: The stationary mix-and-match chart
by A Timeless Celebration
To see how all this works, check out these articles:
Easy on your wedding budget
All of the Wilton line is the same low price of $30.00 per box. The simple, single card style Invitation Kits will contain 50 Invitations, 50 Reply Card and Envelopes for each. If there are vellum papers, bows and extra embellishments included, there will be 25 Invitations and 25 Reply Cards with envelopes for each. The box price for both continues to be just $30.00.
One of the great things about these Invitation Kits is that if there are embellishments for the invitations, the bows are already tied, the pocket enclosures are already made so you simply have to take them out of the box and attach them with the double-sided tape provided; no having to tie the perfect bow to finish the look. Wilton is continually adding to their line of beautiful and affordable do-it-yourself Invitations Kits so we are too.
Comments from our Brides and Grooms are that they were so simple to do with the templates provided... you just fill in the wording and print them. And better yet, they looked so great and so professionally done that no one could believe they printed their own invitations. Imagine cutting invitation costs on average by $350.00. That's money we're sure you can use elsewhere!
Check out their full line of Do It Yourself Invitations at thankyou.on.ca.
On the other hand...
.. there is always the another side to the story! Our vendors also pointed out that the same printing technologies etc that have made DIY invition kits so readily available and affordable, have also made "custom" invitations almost just as affordable. Indeed, there are products out there that will compete head-to-head on price - and you will save your personal time and effort too. Consider the case made here by Nick Willis from Send In The Clowns (gotta love the name!)
The wedding invitation package alternative
Why settle for a kit when you can have a beautiful wedding invitation package that includes
- the invitation with double envelopes,
- a reply card with addressed envelopes and
- a reception or directions card
all printed with raised ink for
only $119.95 for 100.?? This invitation can
- use any wording or verse,
- is available with coloured inks (slightly extra)
- and special embellishments.
We have sold 1000's of these invitations and they are printed in Canada.
Send In The Clowns is the leading provider of invitations in the Kingston area. They carry sample books from all Canadian Suppliers and many US Sample Books. We have lots of wedding accessories, some kits and bulk papers and do custom design and in house printing.
Having Choices is Always good
So, it turns out that you have options here.. (a) DIY wedding invitations Kits are great, cheap, easy, readily available - and they look good too!. But at the same time (b) you can have-someone-else-do-it wedding invitations instead, for only slightly more, or even not more at all.. Don't you just love technology??
Either way, the news are good. You will not ahve to break the bank on the invitations. Save that money for the honeymoon!
