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The Newly Engaged Guide to Wedding Stationery: Part 1 – Hiring a Stationer or Designer
Wedding stationery is one of our specialties here at @Hello. It’s the first glimpse your guests get of your ceremony style, and there’s just nothing better to build excitement than receiving a beautiful invitation or save-the-date in the mail. However we’ve found that a common misconception makes people think that invitations and programs are the entirety of the stationery needed for a wedding. While that may occasionally be the case, there are usually a number of different pieces you may need depending upon the type of celebration you’re planning.
While it’s an essential part of each step in your wedding process, it’s one of the items that sometimes gets overlooked at one point or another during the planning. And when you do remember, it becomes a huge question mark. Do I have to send out save the dates? What pieces to I need in my invitation set? Can I skip the programs? Are you sure I can’t just design them myself?
That’s why for the next few weeks, we’re focused on clearing up all of the questions you have about wedding stationery. From how to choose your stationer or designer (and why you should reconsider going DIY) to what each piece of stationery is and why you may or may not need it. Stick with us, and we’ll do our best to clear up your questions about wedding stationery.
Part 1 – Choosing a Stationer or Designer
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the actual stationery, we first want to cover an issue that is near and dear to our hearts: the choice to hire a professional designer to create your wedding stationery. While it may be tempting to try and DIY your invitations to save money, we can’t stress enough how important it is at least meet with a designer or stationer and discuss the costs before you make a final decision.
While custom design may not be for everyone, and you may be perfectly happy with a template from a book, we often find that brides are pleasantly surprised when they come to us to discuss their wedding stationery. Yes, custom graphic design can be expensive, not to mention the cost of printing the invitations themselves. But one of the best parts about discussing your needs with a designer or printer is that they can offer suggestions that may better fit your budget while still getting the look you want. That’s much harder to do when you purchase invitations out of a template book or on some website.
A Trusted Advisor
The first and foremost important thing to remember when considering a designer or stationer is that you are not just paying for the design itself – you’re also paying for the experience that person offers. A good designer will have the proper programs, resources, and solid design principles that will allow them to create a design that is beautiful and meets your needs. A good wedding designer will know the current trends and etiquette and will be able to advise you on the proper way to word your invitations, whether you need to have direction cards, and what the best type of paper will be for your style.
A Significant Savings
Funnily enough, hiring a designer or stationer can actually save you money. Just consider all of the expenses that you can incur when you DIY your invitations:
- Paper stock
- Ink Cartridges
- Envelopes (in correct sizes to fit your invitations and response cards)
- Additional Supplies (paper cutter, address labels, graphic or font resources, etc.)
And that’s not even to mention the amount of time to create each invitation. Many couples vastly underestimate the amount of time they need to create a DIY invitation, and it can be very frustrating to deal with the problems that crop up in addition to your already busy schedule. There’s also the potential for errors at every step, and what has to be done to deal with them. Because we order many of our supplies in bulk at a discounted rate, we can in turn extend these lower prices to you.
We Handle the Problems
Let’s say you stop in at your local craft store and find the perfect boxed cards. Then you take them home and then the trouble starts. It takes hours just to figure out how to get your printer to even print them, and then paper jams cause you to lose a handful. When you get back to the store, they’re sold out! What then? Do you wait weeks and hope that they get more in stock? Do you look elsewhere? Do you special order what you need at a premium price?
When you leave your invitations in the hands of a capable printer or designer, these headaches virtually disappear. Because we deal with these sorts of issues almost daily, we know the best way to fix them. And we always have extra paper in stock, or we have suppliers who can get us what we need quickly, so you’ll always end up with the amount you need at the end.
Attention to Detail
One of the things we take pride in at World Digital Imaging is knowing that every wedding set is handled personally by one of our designers from start to finish. That means that not only do we spend the design time creating your perfect design, we also oversee the printing process. We make sure that the colors are calibrated correctly, the printer is set and working properly, and the paper stock is correct to ensure that your final print is coming out looking exactly like what you see on screen. We understand that you’re expecting perfection, so we pay attention to every detail to ensure that what we hand you is something that we can both be proud of.
In a Nutshell
Investing in a quality professional designer or stationer is one of the best things you can do for your sanity and your budget when it comes to your wedding. We provide an experienced resource for all of your stationery questions, run interference when problems crop up, and can even save you money. And on top of all of that, we treat every client’s wedding as if it was our own. While custom design may not be the right fit for every couple, we highly encourage you to at least inquire about the cost before you make a final decision. We think that once you’ve met with one of our designers and seen our costs, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
How much did/do you expect wedding invitations to cost? Or how much did you spend on your wedding invitations? Let us know in the comments!
