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I’m too cheap to be a yuppie

March 21st, 2006 @ 10:36 pm | wedding | Post a Comment

This weekend I found myself in an irresistibly cute paper store in the NW. I love paper stores. But I guess I should now revise that statement to say that I love browsing paper stores. I can’t afford anything in them!

I went in to price out some options for wedding invitations, or at least to get some inspiration for making the perfect ones myself. I should have known I was in above my (admittedly meager) budget and style quotient when:

  • The two other couples there were fighting over the Vera Wang Fine Papers binder.
  • One of these couples was a young, gay male couple whose taste obviously far superceded mine.
  • The other couple were middle-aged polar opposites. The woman was “so flustered by all the choices” that “her head was just about to explode” and the dude just wanted to her “pick one already” because “they all looked the fine” to him.
  • I was covered in massive amounts of cat hair because I decided black fleece was appropriate attire since I was headed to the gym next. Oh, and I hadn’t showered since the night before because who showers before the gym?

I picked out two different invitations I liked a lot and one that seemed more simple but perfect for customizing with the right stuff from Michael’s. When I asked the clerk to price out 100 of them, he said they would be somewhere between $700 and $1,500.

Apparently I live in the dark ages because $15 per invitation? Like just for some paper and some ink and an envelope or two? Not including first-class postage around the world and 24 carat gold flakes sprinkled on the inside? Because what on earth could cost so much?

So it will be me, my best (perfectionist, artisy, creative, like-to-be-bossed-around) girlfriends, some cardstock, a laser jet, and the above-mentioned supplies from Michael’s. I’m thinking even if we order really fancy takeout and drink vintageYellow Tail wine, we can still average less than $15 per invite. And it will be much more fun.

Except no getting drunk and messing up the invitations!

 

comments

  1. good god! $15 a piece? i think your handmade ones will be prettier anyway!

    written by jessica

    March 22nd, 2006 @ 8:56 am

  2. I am so with you on this! I couldn’t stomach the prices of those invitations, either. So we did exactly what you plan on doing. Nice paper, but do it yourself! I loved our results, and we saved so much $$.

    written by Kelly

    March 22nd, 2006 @ 9:13 am

  3. Vera Wang has nothing on you! Can’t wait to see them.

    written by Kate

    March 22nd, 2006 @ 9:37 am

  4. $15? Go to Paper Source!

    written by shoofly

    March 22nd, 2006 @ 10:57 am

  5. EVITE! :)

    written by kris

    March 22nd, 2006 @ 11:43 am

  6. I can’t wait to help make your budget-friendly invitations! Hopefully the perfectionist side of me will helpful - not pull-your-hair-out annoying!

    written by Liz

    March 22nd, 2006 @ 11:45 am

  7. Paper Source has lots of ribbons. But back to the drinking, can we make spiked smoothies at the invitation party?

    written by Alexa

    March 22nd, 2006 @ 12:03 pm

  8. Can I help?

    written by amieable

    March 22nd, 2006 @ 3:21 pm

  9. Whoa, that’s just a stupid waste of money if you ask me! I made my own too, and went to a paper warehouse in LA, and got the coolest paper, super high quality. Have you looked for any of those in your area? Way better prices, like $80 for an entire reem, so you can mess up on a few, and not feel horrible!

    written by Haggalicious

    March 22nd, 2006 @ 3:30 pm

  10. $15?!?! That is crazy. Anything you make will be more meaningful anyway. One piece of advice: a good paper cutter! That saved my life when we were making magnets. I want to come to the invitation making party! That will be such a blast!

    written by Sarah

    March 22nd, 2006 @ 3:45 pm

  11. I can’t even imagine paying that much for a wedding invitation.

    I am sure you can come up with something that a) looks better b) is cheaper and c) is just more fun to make.

    Can’t wait to see how they turn out!

    written by Isabel

    March 22nd, 2006 @ 6:53 pm

  12. I found the paper I love at a nice store but they couldn’t get it for me in a large enough size and when I checked out a nearby warehouse, I found that they supplied that store, but they could cut the paper to the size I needed… and it was SOOOO much cheaper there! Good luck!!

    written by Jane

    March 22nd, 2006 @ 7:05 pm

  13. $15 per invite??? That is ridiculous!! I’m pretty sure I got mine, printed and all, for like $1 apiece. And they looked great!

    written by goldmoon

    March 22nd, 2006 @ 10:35 pm

  14. Hey girlie - Anuj and I went to PAPERSOURCE in Georgetown, and their selection is gorgeous! We ordered our envelopes from envelopements and all other papers from papersource… we slaved hours and hours to ge tthe invites done and we came out to I think $4-5 an invite? And they are amazing - we are very very pleased with them.

    Just a warning: we had 7 people working for about 12 hours straight to finish the 180 invites we made. Just so you know!!!

    written by for Joke!

    March 23rd, 2006 @ 5:04 am

  15. Hm, I just wrote a comment and it disapeared?

    ANYWAYS, I was SAYING that we ordered envelopes from Envelopements, and lots of gorgeous papers from PAPERSOURCE in Georgetown, and put the invites together for about $4-5 a pop I think?

    Just a warning though - we had 7 people working about 12 hours straight to make 180 invites…. it is VERY time consuming but our invites are GORGEOUS.

    written by for Joke!

    March 23rd, 2006 @ 5:07 am

  16. Take a deep breath! You have lots of options. FIFTEEN bucks each? That’s a ton of money. (And did you notice that the Vera Wang invites are nice, but look very, very similar to everything else on the market and yet cost much, much more?) There are many, many templates and ideas for the DIY kind, but you can also find lots of nice, affordable invites online. Don’t be fooled by a lot of the DIY stuff. Often times, once you buy all of the paper supplies, the cuttery, the ink, etc. you can end up spending almost as much as if you ordered them elsewhere, but you’ll be out tons of time. Check out places like mygatsby.com, envelopemall.com, chelseapaper.com, paperzone.com, papersource.com, invitesite.com etc. for ideas and materials, and then go from there. If you want to do any type of embellishments/envelopments, definitely do those yourself, but you’ll save time having them the actual printing and cutting done elsewhere.

    More importantly, don’t drink and invite. Who knows who will show up. Or who will cut their finger off in the paper cutter.

    written by Bridehood

    March 29th, 2006 @ 4:30 pm