Do-It-Yourself Invitations - Paper

Looking to save money on your invitations? Make them yourself! But beware: paper can cost a pretty penny and before you know it, you have spent almost as much as if you had purchased invitations from a vendor.

In my quest to stay within our wedding budget, I did what any good sleuth would: I perused the aisles of a local fine paper store, wrote down the names of papers I liked, and then went online to find them for a cheaper price! (What did we do before the Internet???)

Future Hubby and I decided that the invitations should be light blue and black to match the wedding colors. I also had a few other criteria when picking out paper:
1) affordable

2) made from 30% recycled material

3) recyclable

4) awesome looking

During my hunt in the local paper warehouse, I found the following potential papers:

Classic Crest, 80 lb. cover, 8.5"x11" with matching envelopes by Neenah in Welsh Blue
Exact Index, 80 lb., 8.5"x11" with matching envelopes by Wausau in Blue (Azul)

But then I stumbled upon this beauty. It's made by ASPIRE and is called Petallics in Juniper Berry. (Petallics is ASPIRE's metallic-looking paper. Get it? Metallic+Paper=Petallic.) The color isn't an exact match to the light blue of the wedding, but it's close enough and looks FABULOUS with black damask and wording printed on it. Don't forget the matching envelopes!

Now to find this paper online for cheaper. I compared prices among The Papermill Store, Kelly Paper, and Paper Works. For the quantity and shipping costs, The Papermill Store was the clear winner! For 350 sheets of 8.5"x11" paper in 80 lb. text cardstock, I paid $37.97. (To read more about paper weight, click here.) I paid $45.97 for 250 matching envelopes.

Future Hubby thought the 4.5"x6.5" invitation would look awesome on a 5"x7" black background (he was right, of course!). Waussau makes a black cardstock (Astrobright in Eclipse color, 80 lb. cover weight) that, like the blue paper, is made from 30% recycled material. A paper distributor called epedx had the best prices and, as luck would have it, has a physical store located near Future Hubby's work. (FYI: The Papermill Store had the best online price for the black cardstock.) For 250 sheets, we paid $22.39 + tax = $24.57.

With this much blue and black cardstock and blue envelopes, we now have enough for all the invitations, thank you notes at each place setting at the reception, and thank you cards for gifts received. Woo hoo!

Cost for all the paper (invitations, thank you notes, thank you cards):

350 sheets, metallic blue: $37.97

250 envelopes, metallic blue: $45.97

Shipping for metallic paper: $12.73

250 sheets, black cardstock: $24.57

TOTAL for paper: $121.24

Check out the next blog to see how to assemble the invitations and check out how much we saved on this Do-It-Yourself invitation project!