How To Print Wedding Invitations At Home 5 Tips For Success
02/17/21 | How To, Wedding stationery questions
Want more info on printing your own wedding invites? Well, youre in the right place!
Maybe youve designed your own custom wedding stationery, or youve downloaded some pretty done-for-you printables. Getting them printed professionally is going to be expensive, so youre looking into how to print wedding invitations at home.
Well, the good news is, its not as difficult as you might think. BUT there are a few things that you need to consider to ensure you get the best results.
Note: this guide isnt just for wedding invitations, it applies to all types of wedding stationery: bridesmaid proposals, thank you cards, wedding signs, table names, place cards, menus and tags you name it!
Choosing The Right Papers
Another crucial aspect to consider is how your DIY Wedding Invitations are going to look with the different papers and finishes. If you have worked on more earthy, natural and organic designs, our Kraft paper is going to really complement your theme. Classical and retro designs look authentic on our textured papers and our shimmering papers like Ice Gold and Pearl Polar simply ooze glamour. If you want your designs to speak for themselves, or fancy a more modern tone, Silk and uncoated papers are a solid choice. We also have a whole range of eco-friendly paper options if you want to have a greener wedding which you can check out here.
If you have strict colours you want to stick with, youll need to bear in mind that some papers will alter how your printed colours appear. Choices like latte-coloured Kraft, the fine lines of Laid and creamy Acquerello will all slightly alter your printed colours, so make sure youre aware before you order. Our wedding paper guide gives a full rundown of every single one of our options so is a great place to start if youre unsure. And if you want to get a feel for the papers yourself, you can order a free sample pack right here.
A Few Additional Tips For Your Cricut Wedding Invitations
The default bleed setting for Print and Cut on the Cricut is on. They add extra colored patting around the cut line in case the cutting doesnt happen perfectly.
Dont be thrown off if you see a weird extra line around the perimeter of the design.
However, if any of the internal text or images have weird lines or are super fat, it usually means you did that flatten that part of the fill was not set to print.
Different vellum brands also have different levels of opacity. Each printer is different. I do find at times the scanning mechanism has a card time on vellum print and cut projects. I usually just use a black market and trace over the alignment lines which does the trick.
Worst-case scenario, I just cut the rectangle by hand.
Good luck!
Recommended Reading: Which Ring Goes On First
Design Your Own Wedding Invitations
If you are the type of person who likes to take charge and do things a certain way, then DIY wedding invitations are the perfect solution for you. With all of the wedding planning you’ve got going on, there is no one better to make sure your wedding invitations look just right except for you. Even if you are not the bride-to-be and are just a member of the bridal party, you’ll get the perfect results when you design your own wedding invitations and cards. As you start putting the guest list together, don’t forget to take a little time to get your invitations squared away. When you make your own wedding invitations with Shutterfly you can customize them down to the last detail to make an invitation design that you love.
Paper Choices For Diy Wedding Invitations
Theres enough variety in paper types, weights, and finishes to make your head spin and keep you busy for weeks. Heres the basics on what you need to know for choosing what paper youll print your DIY wedding invitations on.
Finish: Your paper finish will affect how youre able to print and how much ink your invitation will take. Glossy papers take a lot more ink and longer to dry. Linen papers and papers with more texture have a much higher tendency to bleed, and so they wont work with some at-home printers where you cant change your ink settings. If youre not interested in researching finishes because youre not a weird nerd who likes to feel on paper, a matte card stock is an easy, relatively foolproof option that will more than likely work for the printer youre using.
Weight: Paper thickness is measured by weight. The higher number you see, in pounds, on the packaging label, the thicker your paper is. This doesnt mean you have to find the thickest paper you canmost card stocks are a great weight for invitations and can hold up to being mailed.
Also Check: Pawn Wedding Ring Prices
Printing Cutting And Assembling The Invitations:
The invites are 3 layers in different shades: Seaglass, Opal, and Ice Blue. The paper I purchased will yield the 3 pieces for each invite, plus a response card and map card to also go inside the envelopes. The Ice Blue layer is the only printed layer of the invite itself. I used the custom print size settings to print the design onto the top layer of the invitation before assembling the layers.
I created cutting templates so that I could take the papers to Kinkos to get the papers cut. They charge $1 per cut.
Their industrial paper cutter can do exact measurements and cut 100s of sheets at a time. It cost me $16 plus tax to get the paper cut.
It was so worth it- imagine cutting 100s of pieces of paper and trying to do it accurately! Save yourself the headache and take your paper to Kinkos! I cannot stress this enough.
Get the Layered Invitation Cutting Templates Here:
Start With The Basic Invitation
There are loads of different styles and types of cards. Flat unfolded cards and traditional card blanks are great if youre on a budget or dont have much information to include. Wallets are great for including lots of extra information, inserts and RSVP cards as well. There are also in-between options that give you the freedom of a wallet on the budget of a traditional card.
Use a neutral colour for the cards, then add colour through printing, embellishments or ribbons. Alternatively, you can use coloured card and make a statement. Card textures can make a big difference to the overall feel of an invitation, from rustic matte textures to contemporary pearlescent effects to vintage tapestry styles. Consider printing or foil stamping the front of the cards, or use peel-off stickers.
Like this? You’ll love
Don’t Miss: Plan A Cheap Wedding
Choose Your Cardstock And Envelopes
Since I printed all my invitations at Kinkos/FedEx Office and their supplies are limited, I bought all my own cardstock. I chose a 92lb weight silver/metallic cardstock. I love the look of a shiny, silver cardstock and this cardstock was perfect. It may be hard to tell in the pictures, but its shiny, silver and metallic.
I ordered the card stock from Amazon.com.
The cardstock came in packages of 25 at $7.31 per package, so I ordered 8 packages .
I also bought the envelopes at Amazon.com. I needed to buy both the outer envelope and the RSVP card envelope that will be mailed back to us .
There are tons of options for envelopes! They have metallic envelopes, matte-colored envelopes, plain envelopes, foil-lined , and on and on.
Where To Find The Best Wedding Invitation Templates
Wondering where to find editable wedding invitation templates online? You’re in luck: The internet is full of resources if you know where to look. Customizable wedding invitation templates are a great way to put your own personal spin on your wedding details. Some templates allow you to adjust everything, from positioning to font and colors. Simply follow the directions and you’ll have a personalized wedding invite ready for printing. Here are a few of our favorite sites.
Also Check: How To Plan A Wedding On A Budget Of 5000
Consider Your Creative Ability
A major advantage of designing your own invitations is having complete creative control over your final product. Unlike pre-made invites that limit you to a select variety, DIY invitations limit you only to your imagination, budget, and creative ability.
Everyone has varying levels of money, time, and talent to put towards their invitations, and it is important to be realistic about your resources from the beginning.
Chances are, if you are putting a solid effort in, your invites will turn out great. However, if youre striving for a design that is out of your price or talent range, the invitation you imagine and the invitation that results may highly differ. This is the champagne taste on a beer budget phenomenon, and its best you avoid it.
All Together Now All Together Now
here’s photos that represent what it looks like once they’ve received the invitation! Be brave, get creative, and don’t be afraid to break every single one of my guidelines. Rules are made to be broken, and if you’re particularly a colorful person, then power to you! Make your invitations rainbow colored for gods sake! It’s totally up to you. Most of all, have fun. This is a great project for you and your partner to take on, especially because of all the time you put in, and the more time you do put in, the more wonderful things you should expect from your wedding, and lifelong marriage. Just one more thing: After you receive your reply cards, make sure you start a chart and guest list and what we did, was color code the separate groups of people that are coming: whether they are friends, family of the bride, family of the groom, family in japan, extended family, college friends, old friends… so on and so forth. This will help with table placement and planning. The whole process cost us about $75 for about… 150~175 invitations, which is a good amount cheaper than getting them from some invitation company. What really was the cost breaker, was that it brought our families together, as we planned and put together invitations, planned location, times, table placements, activities and more. It brought us together which was more valuable than any of the money we saved. Have fun!
You May Like: Officiant Nj
Write A Draft Of Your Invitation
Before you start designing, youll need all your wedding details. Id recommend typing them out in a text file first so you dont make a spelling mistake or miss anything. Traditionally, on your wedding invitations you include:
- Who is hosting
- When is it happening
- Where and the party mention
Were not traditional, so we kept our wording simple. The formality of your invitations is entirely up to you. The only thing that seems to be consistent across wedding blogs is not to include your registry information on your main invitation.
Printable Invitations And Paper Invites
Printable invitations involve creating your own designs or using a printable template online. To find templates, you can do a quick Google search or use sites like Etsy where sellers offer handmade options to make the DIY process easier. You can also order a custom rubber stamp with all of the wedding information printed in your chosen fonts. Then, you simply stamp your cardstock to complete your invitations.
Making invitations from scratch typically takes more time than creating digital invitations. To start, youll have to draw any artwork by hand and may need to adjust the wedding invitation template to get it to print properly. For less tech-savvy couples, this can take quite a while.
Youll also need to put each printable wedding invitation in an envelope, buy postage stamps, and mail out the invitations. And dont forget youll need to keep track of RSVP cards and monitor the responses on your own.
Keep in mind that while you may save money going the DIY paper route, you might not necessarily save time. You also want to consider your level of crafting talent before embarking on a completely DIY approach. For example, calligraphy skills are useful if youre hand-lettering your invitations and stationery.
Also Check: Pawn Shops Wedding Rings
What Youll Need To Print Your Own Invitations At Home
a) Cardstock for invitations
In order to determine the best paper to print invitations on, you need to know the maximum thickness of paper that your printer can deal with.
You will need to be realistic about the weight/ thickness of the card achievable if you opt for at-home printing. You wont be able to have super-heavyweight invitations, but with a bit of experimentation, you can identify the best quality card-weight that your printer can handle .
Be aware of how printing quality will be affected by the finish of the paper. For example, a glossy card may use more ink and textured paper may be more likely to have bleeding ink. Check a sample of paper youre hoping to use to check how well your printer performs with it.
With all the experimentation youre doing to check the best paper and printer settings, youll definitely end up using more card than you imagine. Toss in a few teething errors in trimming/ cutting card down and you should allow for c. 10-15% extra just in case.
Tip! To get a feel for different types of cardstock, why not try a sample pack of wedding stationery paper? You can nab one for free from or Vistaprint !
b) Ink
Ink will be one of the most expensive parts of printing wedding invitations at home.
Printing Invitations At Home A Step
Ok, so youre ready to get printing yay! Heres how to get the best results:
a) Maximise printing quality by tweaking the settings
I use a Canon MP495 and through many test runs, Ive found that the following works best for me:
- Choose photo paper as the paper type .
- Make sure you choose the highest quality color option.
- Before you start make sure you clean the inkjets and printer rollers there should be an option in your printer settings for this
- Choose the right paper size. If theres no exact size option in your printer settings, you can create a custom size within the settings. Tip: save that custom size so you can reuse it for other stationery of the same size at a later date!
Again, youll need to do a bit of trial and error with your chosen paper and design to see what settings work best for your printer.
Read Also: What To Wear To An Evening Beach Wedding
