the Cost of Bridal Shower Invitations

My friend had recently gotten engaged and asked me to be a bridesmaid. Of course, I accepted, only to come to the realization from her mother and sister that they needed some financial assistance with this day. I agreed to help out a bit financially and we went on with the planning. We set the bridal shower date for the beginning of June and around March I decided we should get on the ball with invitations, as many of her relatives and friends lived outside of the area. To keep it simple and cheaper, we chose to have it at a fire house since her fiance was a fireman in town. The issue was that we wanted nice invitations without them being too expensive. So, I went on the computer and used my computer to create a beautiful invitation. I then took the invitation file, saved it as a document to take to our local store. The store was able to print the invitations for us on beautiful parchment like paper (thicker). The invitations came out so nicely that I've suggested it to my friends for birthday parties and they've gone to this store as well. We only wound up paying something close to $50.00 with the purchase of some nice inexpensive envelopes (they were about $13 for a box of 100). The remaining $37 was the cost to print up 90 invites.

We first called up the store to see if they printed because we were not quite sure. They informed us that they did do printing and let us know that they would be able to go through options in person so we could see the types of papers we could use. When we got there, 2 girls helped us by showing us the options we had for paper weight and color. They were really nice and helpful and offered to show us some examples of what the invitation would look like on each paper type. Once we chose a paper type, they printed up what we needed and then helped us find the appropriate invitation envelopes to fit with the decor and weight of the invitation itself. They knew were were strapped for cash, so they tried very hard to work something out with the manager so we could avoid paying for an additional 25 invites when we only needed 5 more to make it 80 (they wanted to print 100 to make it an even number, but were nice enough to only print the 80 and charge us for 75 only). Anyway, they were really nice and helpful in trying to keep our budget down while finding things that were totally beautiful for the shower invites.

I think when planning a wedding in general, you need to be aware of your budget and who is fitting the bill. I was taken advantage of when it came to the whole thing, but I was able to keep afloat because I knew someone would be able to print them at a better quality than I could. I also knew that had a printed them myself, they not only would have come out not as nice or appropriate or sophisticated, but it also would have cost me an arm and a leg. Sometimes, paying for paper and ink and everything else that goes along with that is just not worth it. It's better to go to a printer than try and do it yourself. I think also you should shop around to different printers. This is something that I didn't do because I didn' t have the time, but I think I may have been able to get it slightly cheaper at another retail store OR even from a local printer with his own shop. Another tip would be to choose the smaller, heavier paper because it will look nicer and cost less than the larger paper with a smaller weight.