The Value of Custom Wedding Invitations

So, there are definitely questions that brides don't ask, but I'm almost 100% sure they are thinking. This is one of them:

Why are custom wedding invitations so expensive??

Instead of directly asking this question, they indirectly inquire about it in a couple of different ways.

"I had no clue what to expect when pricing invitations and man, was I surprised..." (I'm paraphrasing. No one calls me "man.")

or

"I didn't realize how much I would have to budget for invitations..."

I get it. I really do. Invitations are made of paper and it just doesn't seem like they should be over $1.00/invite, right?

As much as I could try to convince you that you should care more about your invitations, because this is the first impression your guests will have of your wedding, I'm not going to. Instead, I just want to explain in the best way I know how why custom wedding invitations cost what they do.

First, let's take a look at some basic, run-of-the-mill-cards that you can find at your local Hallmark store.

Just lovely, huh?

Now, how much will you pay for these? They might be 99 cents (you know I frequently hit up the 99 cent card rack), but probably not. I'd say you'll pay about $3.00-$5.00 per card, based on my experience at Hallmark (which is extensive, let me tell you).

And none of us think twice about buying one of these cards, right? Someone's having a birthday, a wedding, a graduation. They need a card. You buy one.

But they're at least $3.00 (I can't remember the last time I saw one for less). 

And they're mass produced.

And they're not personalized. 

Now let's take a look back at Tonia's invitation that were blogged about earlier this week. 

This is a standard pocket fold wedding invitation. I'd say that 90% of my brides come to me wanting these. They are beautiful, and they hold everything right there in the pocket so nicely. 

Now, pocket folds are not the only invitations I do. As you can see here, here, here, or here, I do plenty of other invitations. But for the sake of this example, let's check out all of the different parts that go into making a pocket fold invitation. 

1. Supplies

1 pocket envelope (this is the pocket that everything folds into)

invitation

invitation backing

2 inserts (cards that have direction/accommodations/reception info on them)

RSVP card

RSVP backing

RSVP envelope

Outer envelope

*This is just an example - some brides only have one insert, or don't back their RSVP cards, etc. You can do whatever your little heart desires.

2. Design

Your invitation is custom designed especially for you. It is unique to your taste. It can be as simple or as elaborate as you want. I design it with your tastes in mind.

3. Printing

This includes printing of the invitation, the inserts, the RSVP card, and the envelopes.

4. Assembly

This includes mounting all of the pieces together. Picture me doing this while watching The Bachelor or an old episode of Friends. It's pretty much how it goes down.

5. Stuffing

This includes putting the inserts into the pocket. The only thing left out is the RSVP envelope, which is later stamped and stuffed behind the RSVP by the bride.

Let me get to the point. 

When you come to Vivian Elle Invitations for your wedding invitations, you're most likely going to pay somewhere between $4.50-$12.00/invitation suite. This depends on the kinds of papers you pick out and how simple/elaborate your invitation is. 

But here's the thing. 

1. Custom wedding invitations are unique. They are a reflection of your personality. They give your guests a first look at what's to come at your wedding. They are not mass produced and they don't have a standard greeting like the cards you would find at Hallmark. 

2. There is value in your experience with Vivian Elle Invitations. I do everything for you. During an extremely busy time in your life, you get to have at least one burden lifted off of you completely. 

But I'm going to let my brides speak for me. Here are some quotes from emails they've sent to me. 

I am so thankful to have found you to work with. Honestly since 2012 hit I have been stressed and frazzled about every part of the wedding except your part. You have done such a great job of making me feel at ease and comfortable. I feel better knowing you are handling such a large portion of the day. I can't say thank you enough. 

-Carrie

I am so impressed!!!! You make being a bride so much fun :) 

-Jaime

Jennifer, thank you so much for all of your hard work and dedication. You did a fantastic job personalizing our invitations to make them unique and special. We received so many compliments on them as our guests got them in the mail and we couldn’t be more pleased! These have definitely added a wonderful touch to our special day and it was a great pleasure working with you. I have already recommended you to my friends!! Thanks again! 

-Kristie

Thanks so much, Jennifer. You've truly been a blessing to work with!
-Jessica

I just want you to know how much I enjoyed working with you! You were so much fun to work with and I enjoyed every moment. From designing the invitations, to the seating chart, I  couldn't ask for anyone better to work with. You knew what you doing and I felt so comfortable knowing that I had you to help me with one of the most important aspects of the wedding. It would have been much more difficult without you! Everything turned out beautiful and I haven't stop getting compliments on everything you made.

-Abby

I can't thank you enough for everything you've done so far and how easy you've been to work with.
-Rachel

I know I’m biased, but your invitations are the best I’ve ever seen.

-Jennifer’s mom

(For more testimonials - none written by people related to Jennifer - check out Vivian Elle's page on The Knot.)

FAQ: How to Address Your Wedding Invitations

If you get your wedding invitations designed by Vivian Elle, you'll get your addresses printed. It's something I pretty much throw in as a courtesy and brides are usually surprised and delighted to hear it. Engagements are a busy time and not having to sit down one night and address 100+ envelopes is a valuable thing.

I send my brides a spreadsheet that they put their addresses in. As simple as it is to fill out name/address/city/state/zip, there are always some tricky addresses that come up. Or some brides are just wondering how to address their guests by name on their envelopes. So let me take a minute and answer that question for any of you inquiring brides-to-be out there.

Honestly, I know there's the super fancy traditional way of addressing a wedding envelope, but in my experience working with brides, they just want the basic Mr. and Mrs. _______ on the envelopes, so that's what I'm going to talk about in this post. If you want to get really fancy up in here, The Knot has this great article to help you.

**As far as the actual address, just make sure that you spell everything out. For example:

100 E. Main Street
Apt. 24
Chicago, IL 60608

should be

100 East Main Street
Apartment 24
Chicago, Illinois 60608

That's really all that needs to be said about that. Let's move on, shall we? Here are some quick links if you want to jump right to a section.

Quick Links

How to address an envelope to:
A Married Couple
A Married Couple - Different Last Names
An Unmarried Couple Living Together
Two Married Doctors
A Married Woman Doctor
Families with Children

Married Couple:

Mr. and Mrs. Blake Ostrovan

or

Blake and Sherry Ostrovan (this is for a more informal wedding)

Married Couple - Different Last Names:

Mr. James Walker and Mrs. Sarah Galm

An Unmarried Couple Living Together:

Mr. Jim Peterson
Ms. Theresa Wheelock


Two Married Doctors:

Doctors Gabriel and Julie Regner

or, if they have different last names:

Doctors Gabriel Regner and Julie Parker


To A Married Woman Doctor:

If she kept her maiden name:

Dr. Julie Parker and Mr. Gabriel Regner

If she took her husband's name:

Dr. Julie and Mr. Gabriel Regner

To Families With Children:

Because so many brides are forgoing an inner envelope (in fact, I haven't had one bride that has used one), I get asked about how to include kids' names a lot. Here's the easiest way to do it.

Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Dougherty
Jake, Audrey, and Kyle

I've also had brides just simply put "The Dougherty Family." You can do this, but it is just a little less specific as far as telling the parents exactly which kids are invited. Adding the kids' names provides clarity, which is helpful when you've omitted the inner envelope.

So that's it. Not too bad, right?

More FAQs:

Invitation Wording
Popular Wedding Fonts

FAQ: Fonts

It is no secret that I am a font lover.  In fact, since I started this business about two years ago now, I now notice fonts everywhere - in movie posters, flyers, church bulletins, and signs at my doctor's office. So when others are like, "hey, doc, thanks for the information on the hours your practice is open," I'm like, "why would you use papyrus font to tell me this? what a horrible choice. i'm changing doctors."

There is also a chance that I've become a font snob.

Last week, I started a series of posts called "FAQs." These are questions I get asked regularly by brides. This week, I thought I'd focus on some fonts. 

As far as fonts go, typically brides like to have a script font for their names and a block font for the rest of the invitation wording. 

Like this.

Images by Stevie B. Photography

Or less formally, like this. 

Image by Amy Sayre Photography

Or you might be a little more modern and decide that you want to use all block lettering. That can look great, too. 

Image by Bella Pictures

Image by Capturing Subtleties

No matter what you personal style is, there are a ton of fonts out there to help create your perfect invitation. I've narrowed down some fantastic fonts right here and I'll break them into script fonts and block fonts for you. 

I want to give a little extra attention to the first two script fonts because they are by far my favorites right now. But you might not realize how great they are just at a glance. 

SCRIPT FONTS

First up, Samantha Script. 

Now, when I show you Samantha Script with any ordinary names, it might not necessarily catch your eye.

But here's a little secret. Samantha Script (and most other fonts that you will pay a little bit of $$ for) comes with something called glyphs. They are those super fancy swirly things that you can add to the font to give it a little extra flair.

Check these out.

So those same names above can look like this with these fancy glyphs.

So much better, yes?

And (wait, there's more!) Samantha Script also comes with a whole bunch of catchwords that you can use. 

So then these names can look like this. 

Consider this an official advertisement for Samantha Script. Let's just go ahead and call it my favorite font of 2013.

But let's look at another one that I am loving these days.

Another favorite for 2013 is Melany Lane.

Melany Lane comes with a ton of glyphs as well. Check out the transformation of these words. 

And while it's not quite as noticeable as Samantha Script was, here's the change using just a few of the glyphs.

Here are some more script fonts that I think are great. If you click on the link, you can put your own names in there to see how they'll look.

Hiatus.

Albermarle Swatch.

Baroque Antique Script.

Mardian.

Dear Joe.

Allura.

Lavanderia.

Halo Handletter.

 Black Jack.

 Gelato.

I'd recommend figuring out which script font you'd like to use first. Once that decision is made, here are some block fonts to look at.  If you click on the links, most of these will let you type in your names to see how they would look in each font.

BLOCK FONTS

Trajan Pro.

Optimus Princeps.

Birmingham.

Big Caslon Medium.

Sanford.

Bentham.

Here are some that are a little more modern. 

Copperplate. 

Estilo.

Hero.

Novecento Wide.

Of course, there are a massive amount of fonts out there, but a lot of brides appreciate when I narrow things down for them (considering they have about a billion other decisions to make during this bus time in their lives). But, if you are wanting to browse a little more, here are some great places to do it. 

Free fonts:

dafont.com

1001freefonts.com

fontspace.com

fontsquirrel.com

Not-so-free (but fabulous) fonts:

veer.com

myfonts.com

Next week's FAQ post is going to be on the important dates you need to know as far as when to send our your wedding invitations. See you then!

More FAQs:

Want to find out how to address your envelopes? Go here. 

Want to find out how to word your invitations? Go here. 

Want to hear more about the value of custom invitations? Check out this post. 

FAQ: Tricky Wedding Wording

I get asked a lot of questions about wedding invitations, naturally. One of the things I've wanted to do for a while now is come up with a series of blog posts that I can point my brides to when they ask these questions. So today is the day, my friends.

The numero uno question I get from my brides goes something like this:

My mom and dad are divorced and my mom is remarried, but my dad isn't HOW THE HECK DO I WORD MY WEDDING INVITATION?!

(In actuality, no brides have freaked out this bad. But you get the point.)

So I'm going to answer these (and other commonly asked) questions in a series of blog posts that I'm brilliantly calling 'FAQs.' I even made a graphic for the occasion.

You'll see that baby again, let me tell you.

So, let's go over some general wording, and then we'll get into those tricky situations.

First, some traditional wording examples.

(Side note: A lot of brides come to me and say, "my mom wants us to have her and my dad's names on the invitation." This is said with an exasperated tone - you know, that one you use when your own mother wants you to do something but you just don't get it.

Here's what I usually say to those brides:

1. It's completely normal for parents to want to be listed on a wedding invitation, especially because they are usually contributing financially.

2. Your wedding invitation can still be designed in a fun and unique way even if there are one or two more lines factored in. In other words: don't fight that battle.)

OK, so now let's look at some examples.

Traditional Wording (if bride's parents are hosting):

Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Wallace

request the pleasure of your company
at the marriage of their daughter

Jaime Noelle
to
Tristen Robert Rice

Saturday, the third of August
two thousand and thirteen
at five o’clock in the evening

Meadow Brook Hall
480 South Adams Road
Rochester, Michigan

Reception to follow

Traditional Wording (if groom's parents are hosting):

Mr. and Mrs. James Rice

request the pleasure of your company
as they witness the marriage of

Jaime Noelle Wallace

to their son

Tristen Robert

Saturday, the third of August
two thousand thirteen
at five o'clock in the evening

Meadow Brook Hall
480 South Adams Road
Rochester, Michigan

Reception to follow

Traditional Wording (if both sets of parents are hosting):

Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Wallace &
Mr. and Mrs. James Rice

request the pleasure of your company
at the marriage of their children

Jaime Noelle
and
Tristen Robert

Saturday, the third of August
two thousand and thirteen
at five o’clock in the evening

Meadow Brook Hall
480 South Adams Road
Rochester, Michigan

Reception to follow

Traditional Wording (if you and your significant other are hosting):

The pleasure of your company
is requested at the marriage of

Jaime Noelle Wallace
to
Tristen Robert Rice

Saturday, the third of August
two thousand and thirteen
at five o’clock in the evening

Meadow Brook Hall
480 South Adams Road
Rochester, Michigan

Reception to follow

Divorced Parent Hosts Alone


Ms. Jane Wallace

requests the pleasure of your company
at the marriage of her daughter

Jaime Noelle
to
Tristen Robert Rice

Saturday, the third of August
two thousand and thirteen
at five o’clock in the evening

Meadow Brook Hall
480 South Adams Road
Rochester, Michigan

Reception to follow

Divorced Remarried Parent Hosts


Mr. and Mrs. Richard Veltri

request the pleasure of your company
at the marriage of her daughter

Jaime Noelle Wallace
to
Tristen Robert Rice

Saturday, the third of August
two thousand and thirteen
at five o’clock in the evening

Meadow Brook Hall
480 South Adams Road
Rochester, Michigan

Reception to follow

Divorced Remarried Parent Hosts, both parents included


Richard and Jane Veltri

requests the pleasure of your company
at the marriage of

Jaime Noelle
daughter of Philip Wallace
to
Tristen Robert Rice

Saturday, the third of August
two thousand and thirteen
at five o’clock in the evening

Meadow Brook Hall
480 South Adams Road
Rochester, Michigan

Reception to follow

Divorced Remarried Parents Host Together

Mr. and Mrs. Philip Wallace
and Mr. and Mrs. Richard Veltri

requests the pleasure of your company
at the marriage of their daughter

Jaime Noelle Wallace
to
Tristen Robert Rice

Saturday, the third of August
two thousand and thirteen
at five o’clock in the evening

Meadow Brook Hall
480 South Adams Road
Rochester, Michigan

Reception to follow

Widowed Parent Hosts


Mrs. Jane Wallace

requests the pleasure of your company
at the marriage of her daughter

Jaime Noelle
daughter of the late Philip Wallace
to
Tristen Robert Rice

Saturday, the third of August
two thousand and thirteen
at five o’clock in the evening

Meadow Brook Hall
480 South Adams Road
Rochester, Michigan

Reception to follow

Widowed Remarried Parent Hosts

Mr. and Mrs. Richard Veltri
requests the pleasure of your company
at the marriage of the daughter of
Mrs. Veltri and the late Philip Wallace

Jaime Noelle
to
Tristen Robert Rice

Saturday, the third of August
two thousand and thirteen
at five o’clock in the evening

Meadow Brook Hall
480 South Adams Road
Rochester, Michigan

Reception to follow

*If the groom is the one with a deceased parent, you would just list "Son of Mrs. Jane Doe and the late John Doe" right under the groom's.

Now that we've figured out a lot of different ways to traditionally word your wedding invitation, let's look at some modern examples.


Modern Wording Examples:

Together with their families

Jaime Noelle Wallace &
Tristen Robert Rice

Request the pleasure of your company
at their wedding ceremony

August 3, 2013
5:00 in the evening

Meadow Brook Hall
480 South Adams Road
Rochester, Michigan

Reception to follow
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
We are in love &
are getting married

Please join us to celebrate

Jaime Noelle Wallace
& Tristen Robert Rice

August 3, 2013
Five o’clock in the evening

Meadow Brook Hall
480 South Adams Road
Rochester, Michigan

Reception to follow
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Because you have shared in our lives
with your friendship and love, we

Jaime Noelle Wallace
& Tristen Robert Rice

together with our families
invite you to share in our
wedding day

Saturday, the third of august
two thousand and thirteen
at five o’clock in the evening

Meadow Brook Hall
480 South Adams Road
Rochester, Michigan

Reception to follow
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Please join us to celebrate

the wedding of

Jaime Noelle Wallace

and

Tristen Robert Rice

Saturday, the third of august

Two thousand and thirteen

At five o’clock in the evening

Meadow Brook Hall

480 South Adams Road

Rochester, Michigan

Reception to follow

Hopefully this post is helpful. Remember that wording is small part of the process so don't spend too much time worrying about it. If there's a chance you might offend someone, my advice is always to just go ahead and list them. Don't create a rift in a relationship over the wording on your wedding invitation. Your invitation can still be spectacular, even if the wording isn't 100% exactly how you had envisioned it in the first place. :)

FAQs:

To look at some popular wedding fonts, go here.
To figure out how to address your envelopes, go here.