Cheap Wedding Invitations
and Stationery

There are hundreds of ways to find cheap wedding invitations and stationery, from using pre-printed note-lets where you simply fill in the blank spaces to making your own wedding invites from scratch.

You may have already started looking at invitations and stationery as it’s one of the first things you do after setting the date of your wedding day.

You’ve also probably fallen over at the cost of buying professionally printed stationery! I certainly did. After calculating that I could easily spend around £1,000, I certainly did a quick re-think about how to lower this cost. I found the most cost effective way to get cheap wedding invitations is to do them yourself.

This section on stationery will give you inspiration to make your own wedding invitations, show you how to lower your stationery costs and outline what stationery you need for your big day

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Wedding Invitation and Stationery Articles

Inspiration To Make Your Own Wedding Invitations
Ideas to get you started with making your own wedding invitations. By far the cheapest way to go, this article with give you lots of inspiration.

Got A Question About Wedding Stationery?
Need ideas? When to send invites? What should you include in the invitation? Where to find cheap invites? Get all your questions answered in the forum.

How To Save On Your Wedding Stationery
There are loads of ways to reduce your stationery costs. This article outlines my top tips for cutting your stationery budget and getting a great deal.

Wedding Invitation Envelopes - Shapes, Styles and Sizes
Details on the styles, sizes and shapes of wedding invitation envelopes. Make sure you buy the correct size for your cards, so you don't waste any money.

DIY Wedding Invitations Made Easy
Guest author, Aisling Mackey shares her secrets on how to ensure your DIY wedding invitations have a professional finish.

Free Printable Wedding Invitations
Discover the ultimate in cheap wedding invitations. Use free printable wedding invitations to reduce your wedding invitation costs.

More Ideas For Cheap Wedding Invites
Rather than the standard, everyday wedding invite, why not do something different and save money? These ideas for cheap wedding invitations will give you lots of inspiration.

Wedding Invitation Kits
Find out about wedding invitation kits. These kits take the hassle out of finding your creative flair and give you a great professional finish.

Ideas and Templates For Homemade Wedding Invitations
These ideas for cheap wedding invitations are all created with the minimum cost and fuss. They're simple and easy to follow - anyone can create these simple invitations. With several different designs, there's something for everyone.

My Handmade Wedding Invitations For Under £30
Details on how I made my wedding stationery, where I found inspiration, the costs and the end result.

Your Wedding Invitation Wording
Stuck on what to write in your wedding invitations? These sample invitation wording will point you in the right direction. Samples include traditional and modern wording.

What Wedding Stationery Do You Need?
A detailed list of all the types of wedding stationery you might need. Scan through and pick the ones you want. Just don’t forget to include them all in your budget.

Save The Date Wedding Magnets
Save the Date cards started in the US, but they're becoming more popular in the UK. Save the Date magnets offer a fun new twist on this idea.

Free Wedding Anniversary E-cards (Recommended website partner)
This website is filled with free e-cards, be it a wedding anniversary, milestone anniversary, corporate anniversary or love anniversary. These warm, cute and loving wishes will add a sparkle to your sweetheart's, friend's, family's, colleague's or loved one's day and make them feel special.

How To Save On Your Wedding Invitations

There are loads of easy ways to save money so you can have cheap wedding invitations and stationery. In this article I run through each item of stationery and provide tips and tricks to cutting the cost of each.

Save the day cards

Once the date is set, many brides send out "save the date" cards. This card simply announces the engagement and requests the guest to save the date of the wedding in their diary. This is a very American tradition, but it is now becoming popular in the UK too.

The best way to cut your cost here is send an email! If your guests don’t have an email address, I can guarantee that your mother has already told all your relatives, so even Great Aunt Maud has the date of your wedding fixed in her head.

Cheap wedding invitations

I firmly believe that one of the best ways to cut your costs here is to make your own wedding invitations. You can find plenty of ideas from looking at wedding magazines or wedding stationery suppliers. Creating your own cheap wedding invitations will not only save you money, it will make your wedding more personal and unique.

RSVP or acceptance cards

When sending out your invites, traditionally you send an RSVP card as well. In these modern times, it’s perfectly acceptable not to include this card at all. Instead you can give a postal address to RSVP to, or include your email address or telephone number.

We used an email address for our wedding and it worked perfectly. Those who didn’t get back to us, we simply called up to double check they were coming. You’ll need to do this anyway, as not everyone will remember to return their RSVP.

If you’re really keen on an RSVP card, try to use a postcard instead of a small card and envelope. This will reduce the amount of paper you need to buy as well as the cost of postage for sending out your invites.

Another alternative is not to provide a stamped addressed envelope as a reply card. Let the guest buy the stamp! It will save you a few quid.

Order of service

I frequently see the order of service as a plain piece of folded A4 paper. It’s easy to put together and print out the information, so why have it printed professionally? If you wanted, you could always continue your theme on this piece of stationery too.

Seating plan

I believe that it’s completely unnecessary to have the seating plan professionally printed. You can easily do this yourself using a computer. Just make sure you include everyone who is coming (I managed to miss one friend off. He took it lightly, so it wasn’t too embarrassing! Lucky for us that it wasn't Great Aunt Maud!)

Table place cards

A hand-written place card for each guest is a cheap alternative to getting them printed as well. They’re very cheap to buy and most good stationers stock them. If you're keen on getting them printed, why not try your home printer and some quality card?

Thank you cards

I'd suggest buying these in packs from stationers. There are plenty of wedding thank you cards available and generally they're reasonably priced.

In most cases, once the big day is over, most of your guests are on to the next big wedding of the summer, so keeping to a theme for your thank you cards is not so important. Your guests will be more concerned that you’ve recognised the fact that they bought you a gift.

If you’re still feeling creative, then you could make these as well to match your invites.

The last word

If you’re still dead-set on getting your wedding invitations and stationery professionally printed, make sure you follow the golden rules:

- Set your budget and stick to it
- Get three quotes and compare like with like
- Get extra printed, just in case of mistakes
- Avoid fancy printing techniques such as embossing or metallic colours
- Use second class postage and don’t forget to include this in your budget!
- Perhaps limit the professionally printed pieces to only key pieces such as invites and RSVP cards only.