The Do-it-Yourself Solution to Wedding Invitations: DIY Kits
Can DIY wedding invitations look as good as professionally printed wedding stationery?
This is the big question, isn’t it. We here at Invitesite have seen some painfully embarrassing examples of DIY efforts.
Yikes. And, we know how much work went into making them. Huge efforts for bad results. We’ve seen some great DIY project too — especially on bridal blogs over the past few years. But the bride or groom devoted artistic vision and graphic design skills in most of the fabulously creative stationery we’ve admired.
A well designed invitation has perfectly cut edges, tidy scores, and the print is well laid out and printed with an eye for margins.
Additionally, we believe that an invitation “stands in” for you. It is a formal representation of the two of you as a couple. (The definition of the word “stationery” originally , was to show your “station” in life. “Branding” — in the most basic sense.)
As paper connoisseurs, we seek out the richest, most evocative papers we can find, that are also sustainable and affordably priced. It is easy to use a cheap cardstock for a DIY invitation, but the result is just that. Cheap. Sorry – but you won’t find cheap paper used even on our budget priced designs.
All the do-it-yourself wedding invitations photographed on Invitesite were printed on a low-end HP laserjet, and show how well the papers take laser printing. We’ve worked with thousands of different papers over the years, and have project tested all the papers we use.
Our kits start with beautiful papers — and we create designs that feature the best characteristics. Then, each invitation part is fabricated one by one, on our special presses. Each of our 10 presses has a story, some dating back to the 1880′s. We diecut the shapes, and on some kits, we letterpress print (again, a hand fed process) a unique piece of artwork to decorate the invitation. All our artwork was originally drawn by hand, and then converted to a plate.
We demand quality from our papermakers and from ourselves, so that we can bring quality from our hands to yours.
Your guests will notice.
