A trend I’ve been obsessed with long before I ever got engaged were custom wedding invitations. I was particularly in love with hand painted images of wedding venues on invitations. To me, they were not only timeless, but a piece of artwork everyone of our guest could keep too. My concern with getting custom invitations done for a wedding was the price. Custom wedding invitations can cost thousands of dollars, and that simply was not in the budget. Luckily, my old co-worker is an extremely talented artist. I asked if she would be willing to paint and design our invitations and was blessed when she said yes.
The beauty of custom invitations is that you can work with an artist or designer to create exactly what you are looking for. You can incorporate your wedding colors, favorite things, venue, and so much more. When they’re all said and done, you’ll know that no one else will have an invitation just like yours. It’ll be completely unique and one of a kind.
Budget Friendly Custom Wedding Invitations
My number one tip for budget friendly wedding invitations is, source local artist. There’s plenty of artist online that will create a custom wedding invitation for you. But like mentioned before, they can cost thousands of dollars. If you have a large budget or your invitations are one of your splurge worthy items, sure it’s totally worth it to use these artist. It just wasn’t in my budget. By using my co-worker, I saved myself a ton of money. For under $500 we received a custom painting of our wedding venue, custom invitation designs, printed invitations, envelopes, and stamps. That’s all the stationary for under $500. (For reference, The Knot did a survey and found that the average couple spends $530 on stationary and invitations. We spent just over $400 for custom invitations).
Another way we saved money was by sending virtual save the dates instead of printed ones. We gathered everyone’s emails and put together a simple save the date. (Tip: Use printed save the dates as inspiration. I have some knowledge with Photoshop and InDesign so this was a pretty simple task to accomplish). Hand lettering envelopes is another expense for invitations. We got beautiful lettering by using Cricut to address our envelopes. Finally, a huge way to save on postage is by having guest RSVP online. The Knot offers a free wedding website, registry, and reservation system. It was a huge cost saver (and peace of mind giver).
