DIY: Wedding Invitations

Wedding invitations were one of my most and least favorite parts of the wedding planning process…all at the same time.  

When I first looked into wedding invitations, I did NOT think, even for a second, that I was going to end making my own. That was until I realized how expensive wedding invitations could get...because companies charge each paper/envelope that you put into it. There aren’t really any “set” deals that I was able to find with decent looking invitations. I was beginning to tell myself that I should probably just take the bullet and expect to spend a bit on the invitations…until my MOH showed me a UK website that sold DIY invitations. Basically, you would just purchase the pieces of the invitation and assemble it yourself. The designs on the website were simple but pretty – basically what I was looking for. I was ecstatic! Then I looked at the price and scoffed! Really?! That much to buy pieces of paper that I would have to print and hand-assemble myself?!

 Psh. I could just design the template myself, print, and cut the invitations instead.

And…that’s what I ended up doing.

I know, I know, you’re probably thinking, “isn’t that a LOT of invitations to make by hand?” …or maybe that’s not what you’re thinking, but that was the first fear I had when I decided to make my own invitations. I was inviting around 125 people and I freaked myself out thinking I needed to hand make 125 invitations. Then I realized that a lot of them are relatives/families, so I didn’t really need 1 invitation per person. In total, for my 125 guests, I made 75 invitations.

**TIP**

Regardless of whether you decide to make or buy your invitations, go into the process knowing how many invitations you’ll need first. This makes the whole process seem less daunting as you’ll actually know how much the cost and efforts will end up being. A lot of websites offer bulking deals…as in the more invitations you order, the cheaper the per unit fee.

The first step to any DIY is to find your motivation/figure out what you want to do. After that, is the execution. Depending on your aesthetics, your invitation inspiration will be different. However, today, I will be sharing with you my process for how I created my wedding invitations.

This was the invitation that inspired me:

Source: 1

And this was how my completed invitation looked:

Materials:

• Adobe Photoshop (to design and layout your invitations)
• Card stock (this is the website I used to order my card stock from -- they offer a wide range of textures, sizes, and colors -- not sure if they were necessarily the cheapest option, but it was the easiest for me since it had all that I needed in one place)
• Coral ribbons
• Glue Stick
• Doublesided tape (the absolute best invention in the entire world)
• Hot glue gun
• Envelopes (Note – I found envelopes in the sizes I needed so I didn’t need to make them)
• Envelope Liners
• Corner puncher (the one i used was called "double arches")
• Printer
• Scissors/Exacto Knife/Rotary Cutter (whatever you prefer to cut in straight lines)
• Wax Seal Stamp (optional - the one I got was the Chinese symbol for "double happiness")
• Wax (optional and only if you choose to use a wax seal - I chose the "classic gold" color in the glue gun ready size -- this makes it easier to apply because you can just squeeze the wax out of a glue gun like you would hot glue!)

Process:

For the invitation & inserts:

• Decide on the design and figure out the logistics of how your invitations will be laid out. For mine, I knew I needed one long “folder” like piece to house all of the papers inside, and then some additional square/rectangular sheets of varying sizes for the content inside.
• Figure out your dimensions given any constraints you might have. I was using a regular household laser printer, so I knew that whatever size paper I used could only be at most, legal size. Using the 8.5” x 14” dimensions, I started measuring out how big my invitations could be. My dimensions ended up being as follows:
• Outer Folder: 6 1/5" x 12 2/8"
• Large Square for invitation details: 5 5/8' x 5 5/8"
• Backing for Large Square: 5 7/8" x 5 7/8"
• RSVP Card: 4 6/8" x  3 1/4"
• Backing for RSVP Card: 5" x 3.5"
• The trickiest part of this whole process was trying to figure out how to fit the folder onto 1 sheet of legal sized card stock. This was how my template ended up looking:

The website I used to order my card stock allowed you to order card stock in whatever color you want in whatever size you wanted—they also had some pre-cut options. I looked into the price difference between ordering standard sizes, pre-cut sizes, and customized sizes, and decided that for my invitation inserts, it was easier to just order the pre-cut cardstock in the colors I wanted (when available). My reasons were simple—A) I sucked at cutting straight lines and B) Ain’t nobody got time for cutting out squares by hand! I was already going to have to cut out the outer folders for each invitation…I didn’t need to be bogged down by the inserts too, especially when they were pretty straight forward shapes/sizes. 

• After getting all the dimensions and paper mediums down, the hard part was next—figuring out the language and fonts for the invitations. Well, the figuring out the fonts was fun—it was something I enjoyed! But figuring out the content was a nightmare. Some voice in my head told me I needed to provide both an English and Chinese version of the invitations because a lot of relatives couldn’t read English…so that was what I decided to do.
  
  The English piece was easy since there were hundreds of websites online that offered templates. The Chinese piece was a different story. My mom had Chinese invitations from friends’ children’s weddings that she gave me to leverage off of and she was fine with what I ultimately put together. As courtesy, I also ran the invitations by H’s family…and that was when chaos ensued. They didn’t like the wording because it sounded odd to them—according to them, nobody wrote invitations like that and that the invitations that go to H’s family shouldn’t have my name on it and vice versa…because no one in the other person’s family would know who they’re marrying (it was completely bizarre). Long story short, we had a lot of back and forth between me and H’s family on how Chinese invitations should look like and at the end, I won because their friend who is an expert with Chinese weddings confirmed that the language I used was how Chinese invitations are in the US.

• Once the template and content are done, do a trial run. Make sure you test it with normal cheap paper (not the expensive stuff you specifically ordered!) so you can ensure that your template will work the way you intend for them to.

• This is how my finalized template looked:

• To actually print out the templates onto your cardstock, adjust the printer settings to match the paper size. Again, make sure to do trial runs before each batch of printing, even if you tested it before. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.

• Once everything is printed, the next step is to cut out the outer folder and assemble the different pieces of the invitation. For the outer pocket, I used a ruler to help with the folds and then glue stick to flue the flaps of the pocket down. Before gluing down the flaps, I used a corner punch to add some intricate detailing to the pocket flap to make it look fancier. After going through all the pockets, I laid a textbook on top of them to help the pockets stick better and to reinforce the folds.
  
  For the inserts, I simply used double sided tape to assemble them together – trust me, this is the best method. I tried using glue stick and it was just messy and time consuming.

• For the bow on both the inside and outside of the invitation, I took a piece of ribbon and wrapped it around the square insert and also the outer pocket to see how long of a piece of ribbon I needed in order to go around them. After using those measurements to cut out as many pieces as I needed, I used a hot glue gun to glue the ends of the ribbon together so I would have a giant loop through which I could slide the outer folder/inserts into.
  
  Then I took another piece of ribbon and tied a bow with it to the size I wanted and chopped off the ends to my desired length. After I was happy with the bow, I unraveled it to measure the length. Again, I used those measurements to cut as many bows as I needed and spent about half an hour tying all of them into bows. Once you have all of your bows, just hot glue the bows onto the ribbon loops, right on top of where the ribbon ends were glued together. Ta Da! Pretty, right?

For the envelopes:   

• There were a total of two envelopes used for the invitations -- the one for the whole invitation and the one to include in the invitation for guests to use to RSVP. At this point in the process, I decided to take the easy route and just purchase envelopes instead of attempting to make them from scratch. I ordered my envelopes from the same website that I used to order my card stock. While creating the RSVP and invitation, I factored envelope sizing into my calculations to make this process easier for myself. 
• At first, I was just going to order the envelopes and leave it at that. However, while browsing the card stock website, I came across envelope liners. Yes. Envelope liners:

• I debated internally for a while whether it was worth it to spend the extra money on them, and ultimately decided that it was. The liners really tied my wedding color theme together--giving the invitation the bit of gold it was missing. To assemble the liners to the envelope, use either glue stick or double sided tape. I personally preferred double sided tape. Note that you don't have to cover the WHOLE liner with double sided tape. Insert the liner into the envelope and fold it all down so you can crease your liner, then open the envelope flap and with the liner still folder down, only put double sided tape or glue on the 2 sides that converge into the angular tip at top and then fold the envelope flap back down again. It's THAT simple. 

• For RSVP envelope, I just plugged in the dimensions of the envelopes into photoshop and picked out a font for my own address. To make the "self addressed" part easy, I just printed my address on each envelope and then stuck a stamp on each envelope. Note - you do NOT need to provide the stamps if you don't want to--I only did it because it'd be easier for my guests to just stick the RSVPs in the mail. However, if you DO plan to include stamps, make sure to factor this into the cost of the invitations -- stamps unfortunately DO add up. One other tip is to browse the USPS website for wedding themed stamps to make it more fun. 

• For the outer envelope, I used mail merge once again to print both my own address and my guests' addresses on each envelope and just ran the envelopes through my printer. 

• Finally, to seal the envelopes! I knew from the beginning that I REALLY wanted to incorporate wax seals into my invitations. While browsing online, I came across the "double happiness" stamp from Nostalgic Impressions and jumped at the chance of purchasing the stamp as well as the accompanying wax. I picked out a bronze-y gold wax color and picked out the glue gun wax sticks instead of the traditional wax with wicks. Using glue gun wax sticks is a LOT cleaner and easier for beginners and those who don't like playing with fire--just make sure your glue gun is a half inch glue gun so the wax stick will fit into it. Now, the reason I picked the "double happiness" stamp is because I wanted to incorporate more of the Chinese element into the invitation. Double happiness is HUGE in the Chinese culture when it comes to weddings so it felt appropriate. 

• For invitations I mailed out, I glued the envelope flaps down first before applying the wax sealants. For invitations I handed out manually, I skipped the gluing step and just applied the wax sealant onto the invitation directly. TIP: Test out the wax sealants a few times before you start sealing your envelopes--it takes a few test runs to get used to the process, but once you get it, I guarantee you'll fall in love! For those who want to be EXTRA careful and want each seal to look PERFECT, you can totally pre-make the wax seals on wax paper, then just stick the wax seals onto the envelopes with double sided tape or glue afterwards. I do have to say that the wax seals stick better if you apply it directly to the envelope as opposed to pre-making them first though!