DIY Wedding Invitations

Michael and I are getting married on a bit of a budget which means that I’m trying to do as much of the organising and making of things myself (with the help of Michael). I actually really enjoy doing this sort of stuff so I’m secretly very pleased that these jobs have fallen upon me!

It took me a while to think of something to do for the invites- I kept trawling through Pinterest and Blogs, seeing these amazing designs, and panicking about how much time they were going to take. In the end I just started doodling and it all kind of fell into place. I decided not to include all the details about the wedding on the invite itself but made a web address at www.theknot.co.uk. Guests could RSVP, find directions, places to stay and pick what they wanted to have for dinner (which by the way is going to be Italian food from a man with a van that is also a pizza oven… Fancyy!!)

The invitations themselves probably took me half a day to paint, scan in and layout but it was the printing and envelope writing that took the longest. I would say all in all it took me two full days to make sure everyone on our guest list had a personalised wedding invitation.

If you’re planning on doing the same sort of thing for your wedding I would advise setting aside 3 days. This will give you time to get hold of all the materials you need, designing/experimenting (aka having enough time to make mistakes) and then the monotonous task of photocopying/printing, cutting up and addressing.

This is what I spent our money on for creating these invites:

1. A big pad of drawing and watercolour paper (100 sheets of paper). We bought ours here. £18.50. Luckily there’s a lot left over which I’ll use for place names and table numbers etc.
2. Watercolour Paints… which I already had.. but you can get a cheap set for under £5.
3. A pot of gold paint and a brush. £10. Here and Here
4. Good quality envelopes. £28 (£4 for 20). Here
5. A book of 100 2nd Stamps. £54. Here
6. Sealant wax and stamps. £6. Here and Here
7. And if you don’t use a photocopier from somewhere… There will be the cost of printing….
8. Last but not least… Guilletine  £29.95. Here. If you’re on a really tight budget you can just use a cheap stanley knife and a metal ruler but I found that took me longer.

I would advise creating your invitation around tools you already have. For example I knew I already had a guillotine so I purposely didn’t search for cheap good quality A5 size blocks of paper… I knew I would be able to cut the big sheets up myself. In total I spent around £100 on getting invites sent to all out guests. But that will also cover the place names, table numbers and maybe even the order of service.

I could give you a step to step guide on how I created these but I guess you don’t want to copy mine completely! If I were to do this all again I would start by drawing and doodling and see what comes out. Once you’ve created something- scan it in and put it with some text.  If you don’t have Photoshop or any creative programs you can download GIMP which is a free program for image manipulation and will work perfectly well for this project. 
If you’d like me to design your wedding invitation or you’d like help designing your own please don’t hesitate to drop me a line!