Invitations DIY or just Buy

We did our engagement party invitations through Mixbook and they turned out great. They were having a sale too so it was pretty inexpensive. Like others have said, one of the online services is probably a better option, unless you're super crafty and have the time and ability to DIY.

It honestly depends on what you exactly want. I bought the designs for my STD and invitations/response cards through a designer on Etsy. Paid $50 total I think for that. she gave me pdfs and jpeg versions of all of them. For the best result, she recommended a professional print shop using metallic card stock.

However, VP and professional print shops that I visited didn't carry metallic card stock.

For the STD, I went through Vistaprint and had a doubled sided post card design. I choose a glossy finish and it came to about $40 for 100 total. It was fine for a STD but I knew I needed to go the metallic card stock route for the invites.

I ended up paying $50 for 100 sheets metallic card stock at a paper shop and $80 for printing 100 invitations and 100 response cards at a FedEx Office. Throwing in the envelopes I purchased (outer envelope was matching the metallic card stock) the total came to $180 I think. And I have about 25 sheets of the metallic card stock left over. If I went through VP for my invites, it would have cost $168 after a hefty discount and it wouldn't even have been on the nicer card stock that I wanted.

You just have to shop around. Since I was uploading a design and not using the design tool on VP or any other similar site, it just wasn't the best fit for me.

I made my STDs using Avery.com's template. Bought the cards and envelopes on Amazon for $26. I also got some clip art on Etsy for $7.

I'm pretty crafty so I'll probably do the same thing for our invites.

I bought a PDF template from Etsy and did them myself. Pretty easy!!

In response to the "nicest", we ordered from Elegant Wedding Invites since they have lasercut for prices comparable to other websites that offer just plain options. Plus, the owner emails you privately and works very closely with you until everything is perfect. She's very timely with her responses, as well.

She also offered me a discount for working through email with her as opposed to ordering directly from the website.

Vista print from what I hear. I used shutterfly and wouldn't recommend it. It was a pain in the ass trying to customize those templates and expensive to boot.

We were thinking about doing our own invitations and we were going to but we decided to meet with and invitation designer and we absolutely are going with them. They had so many more options than shutterfly or other online options. They had paper that is bumpy and designed like wood (which is a big component of our wedding decorations) in like 5 different colors. Also they had like 5 giant stacks of paper samples so we definitely had our choice of what we wanted. I love this a whole lot better than doing them myself. Also this is barely more expensive than doing them myself. I did make my STDs by myself and am printing those out on my own but I am very happy that i decided to go with a pro for this part.