How to Budget Your Second Round of Wedding Invitations

If you had to reschedule your wedding due to COVID-19, chances are, you’re heartbroken about all those invitations you spent a fortune on. Not to mention all the time you spent putting them together. For me, I was completely torn when we got the news that our venue was shutting down and cancelling all events during our wedding month.

My anxiety instantly shot through the roof. Where would we have it now that our original venue has no more available dates this year? Does it have to be a weekday? Do I have to recreate my vision for the decor? How much money are we about to lose out on vendors who can’t commit to our new date?

It’s overwhelming, I know. I probably spent an entire day’s worth total just sitting in front of my computer over the past week, mindlessly searching the web, and pacing back and forth in our home. There may have been a few tears in between, but in the end, everything always works out one way or another! We found a new venue (hooray!), and this time around, planning is much easier, and theres a ton of workload off our back. It’s like the universe gave us a second chance at planning! I feel like I’m planning a second wedding, but with the same person! Okay, never mind, but you get what I mean…

After we secured the venue, and our spirits were a bit more lifted than the week before, a thought came to mind…Do I have to send out new invites?!

I wanted to write this blog post to help any other brides out there who is planning to send out new invites for their new dates. You actually don’t have to spend all that money again!

If you’re like me, then you must have spent hours searching for the perfect invitation suites. I customized ours from having vellum paper, to a wax seal! Imagine my disappointment when we got the news that our venue was cancelling all events in May 2020. AHHHHH!!!

 

 

Notify Those Closest to You of the Changes

Before you even think about getting new invitations to send out again, start with notifying your immediate family first, then work your way to your friends, and anyone else who’s contact information you have! You can save yourself a lot of money by doing this. Not everyone needs to be mailed a new invite anyways. A simple phone call or Facebook message will suffice. If you have a good amount of guests than not who are more traditional, then keep reading to find out how you can create simple but still professional-looking invites to send out!

 

Reach Out to Your Invitation Suite Company

If you still want to have your original invitation suite design for keepsake and to give to your photographer for detail shots on your wedding day, reach out to the company you ordered your original invitations from. I ordered mine through Shine Wedding Invitations, and they have been more than accommodating! They were kind enough to send me not one, but two copies of our invitation suite with our new date and venue! One for keepsake, and another to give to my photographer for photos.

If it’s in your budget to order the same suites, then go for it! I’ve heard of a few companies offering discounts to those who had events postponed due to the pandemic, or even offering a new set for free, such as Minted.com.

 

DIY Wedding Invites at Home

If your guest list is anything like ours is, it’s probably pretty long. Maybe there’s so many names on it that are unfamiliar, or that you just have no clue who they are. Maybe they were invited by your future in-laws, and even they lost their phone numbers but still have their addresses. If you have a home printer and some ink, it’s easy to make invitations! I’ve compiled a list of the items you’ll need create your own invites from the comfort of your home without burning holes in your wallet.

You’ll Need:

• Printer (I am using an HP Deskjet 2640)
• Ink (Black is fine, unless you prefer color)
• Good Quality Printer Paper (I used Southworth’s Linen Business Paper I bought from Walmart for $8-$10 but you can opt for thicker paper)
• Paper Trimmer (I bought one from Walmart for cheap!)
• Invitation Envelopes
• Address Labels (I recommend Avery)

Design the Text Layout

If you don’t have a program already installed on your computer such as Microsoft Word or InDesign (which I used to create our new invites), you can actually just use Google Docs to type it out! For the sake of saving time, I’ll give you the steps on how to create it through Google Docs (We’ll save Adobe InDesign for another day)

Once you write out your desired message and play around with the types of fonts, you’re going to want to print out a draft on regular paper to make sure your alignments are correct and that it looks the way you want it to.

Side note: If you have no clue what to say on the new invitation, check out some common websites that sell invitations and just take a peek at the wording on their sample invites!

Copy and paste all your text into another page, so your document has a total of TWO PAGES.

Go up to FILE and click PRINT. I’m working from a Macbook laptop so it will automatically pull up a new window with the document as a PDF file.

Next, go up to FILE, scroll down to PRINT.

Are you ballin’ on a budget? You can create two invites on the same sheet of paper! just print both pages of your document onto one sheet. If you have a Mac make sure the paper size is set to “US Letter”. Then make sure the ORIENTATION is selected as the portrait or vertical selection (see photo below). Then select to have “2 Copies Per Page”, and now your ready to view and print your rough draft.

Once you have all of your new invites printed on the fancy paper you desire, it’s time to cut them in half using the paper trimmer! Make sure the envelopes you purchase will fit the final size of the invite you’re cutting! I purchased A2 Invitation 4 3/8 in x 5 3/4 in Envelopes from Office Depot, so after I cut all the paper evenly in half, our final invites were folded, but you can get even fancier with it if you want by trimming to other sizes!

Once all of your new invites are tucked into the envelopes, start making the address labels. I like Avery’s labels because their website allows you to create templates for free and just input all the names and addresses right there and print from your computer! I don’t know about you, but I don’t think my poor hand could handle addressing over 100 invitations!

If you have any questions, or get stuck during one of the following steps, please feel free to reach out to me! During these times, it doesn’t hurt to come together in one way or another and help each other. These are such crazy, uncertain times, but together we can make it through this!

 

Xoxo,

-N