I’m an invitation designer, so frankly, I don’t believe invitations are *too expensive*, but I can understand why the wedding invitations cost can be surprising to some people. So here are the 7 factors that go into your invitation pricing!

I’ll share what things are driving UP the cost, why they are, and of course, how to drive down the cost if you want to save on wedding invitations without sacrificing quality.

A quick disclaimer: There are beautiful options out there for any and all budgets. It’s just about finding what works for you and your vision. Just keep in mind that to get everything you want, you may need to splurge, and to stay on a tighter budget, you may need to compromise your vision. 

7 Factors Affecting Invitation Cost

Your wedding invitations cost can be broken down into 2 main categories: 

Time + Expertise cost money! The more time you want someone to spend on your invitations, and the more expert they are in their craft (design, painting, calligraphy), the more they will cost.

Materials cost money! If you need more materials, or more expensive materials, you will pay more. Fewer materials (and cheaper ones) obviously cost less.

The 7 factors affecting invitation cost are:

1. Design Time
2. Assembly Time
3. Quantity
4. Embellishments
5. Print Method
6. Paper
7. Postage

Let’s break them down:

Design Time drives the Wedding Invitations Cost

Design time will usually be the most expensive factor that you can control in your invitation shopping! As an example, I put at least 8 hours into designing most invitation suites. Some artists put 30-40+ hours into custom painting entire collections of artwork for an invitation suite. That will cost money.

Your options here:

Custom Invitation Design $$$-$$$$

Fully custom artwork will usually run on the higher side. You can still get custom design without custom artwork which will be a little less expensive. These designers are high-end, luxury, they know what they’re doing, and they can create incredibly unique pieces that you’ve never seen before! They’ll also handle ALL the logistics for you to take that off your plate. My advice? If you hire a custom designer, let them cook!

Semi-Custom Invitation Design $$

The design part of this piece is usually included or at a lower cost. These exist with a variety of price points though, depending on your print materials. Semi-Custom design means that you pick from a book or collection of designs, and customize from there. The designer still does the actual designing, and you can often customize by changing colors, fonts, monograms, etc. and adding custom artwork if you desire. A perfect fit if you need some hand-holding but want to pick and choose what you want from visual examples! 

Invitation Templates $

These are pre-made designs that you can edit yourself! You’ll get the touch of a designer, maybe some custom gorgeous artwork, and a suggestion of layout, text and fonts that will work well. You can usually customize them in an online design program and then print them yourself! All of our templates are available here if you want to check them out. If you’re willing to give it a little time, you can save a TON of money (for reference: our templates are around $22 and our custom invitations start at $3,500!).

Assembly Time for Wedding Invitations Cost

Similarly to design time, the more assembly time you require, the more money you will spend. If you have a DIY spirit and don’t mind doing some assembly, you can often save money. A note, though: some high-end custom designers will not let you do assembly yourself as it’s not always easy (especially when you get into complex, luxury assembly). These high-end designers want you to get *the best* product so they’ll do the assembly themselves.

Some things I think you can definitely handle assembly-wise:

• Stamps
• Ribbons (here’s a video with my 6 fave ribbon ties!)
• Address labels
• Vellum wraps + belly bands (try these gorgeous, pre-folded ones!)
• Maybe envelope liners (here’s a video)

Some things that are harder to do on your own:

• Wax seals
• Envelope printing – it’s just hard!!!
• Die-cutting (you def need an expert for this)

And of course, some basic stuffing and sealing envelopes you can probably handle on your own if your designer is open to that idea! It might save you some $! As an example, we always do full assembly for our custom clients, but our semi-custom clients we only do the more complex assembly (installing envelope liners, but not stuffing everything into the envelopes) to keep costs down. 

Quantity

This one should be easy. 200 invitations is going to cost more than 50 invitations, no matter what materials you use. The part that gets tricky is with lower quantities.

People assume that 10 invitations will cost WAY less than 50-100 invites, and are surprised when they don’t always. All printers have setup costs and shipping costs no matter how many they are printing. Also, designing and proofing 1 invitation takes the same amount of time as designing and proofing 200 invitations.

So while materials and assembly will undoubtedly be cheaper for lower quantities, design and setup are the same!

Print Method

Some print methods are more expensive than others:

Digital Printing $: Basically, “flat” printing, your classic 4-color printing process. You can print so many gorgeous things digitally if budget is a priority. 

Letterpress + Foil Printing $$-$$$: You have to create a custom die for your design and then run it through a (usually very old) press. Both of those things cost money. You can keep costs low by using only one color in your design, or mixing digital printing with letterpress/foil printing.

Engraving + Sculpted Embossing $$$$: These are gorgeous print techniques but require specialized two-sided dies and specialized expertise, making them more costly! 

Paper

Similarly, some papers cost more than others!

Smooth / Thinner papers are the most cost-effective. I usually don’t recommend going below 100# in thickness for a standalone card.

Eggshell, felt, and linen papers are all textured and mid-level. My “house stock” is eggshell texture. I think these are a good mix for feeling luxurious without splurging too much.

Cotton paper is the most pricey of the “common” invitation papers. It’s most often used for letterpress printing as it gives a nice deep impression and is highly textured.

Handmade paper has those “deckled” or “torn” edges (in truth, they aren’t torn – that’s how they’re made!). This paper is so luxurious and incredible, but of course that comes with a cost! It’s also difficult to print on, so we typically recommend letterpress or foil printing if you’re using handmade paper (further driving up the cost). If you’re willing to sacrifice your hands then you can hand-tear paper to achieve a similar look (I’d recommend cotton, it tears the best). 

Embellishments

We talked about this a little with assembly, but any embellishments (wraps, ribbons, wax seals, etc.) can add cost. The materials cost, the tools used to create them cost, and they might add more postage.

A few of my favorite embellishments that don’t cost a lot:

• Envelope liners
• Belly band 
• String / Thread wrap (spools in tons of colors are like $8 at Michael’s!)
• Fun stickers to close your envelopes
• Small shaped tag (use a shape punch from Amazon!)

If you’re feeling like DIY-ing, you can definitely tackle some of these without breaking the bank! I especially love anything that holds the suite together (ie the string or belly band) because it makes it feel like a present when your guests take it out of the envelope!

Things that are more elaborate like vintage postage, wax seals, etc – they’re going to cost a bit more and may take a little more patience / trial and error. 

Postage

Postage is often not included in the price of invitations because well…it’s not technically part of the invitations. But it can affect the cost a lot (heck, a single stamp is $0.78 right now!).

Here are some things that will, perhaps unintentionally, hit you with a larger postage bill than expected:

• Anything thicker than ¼” will require a nonmachineable surcharge (currently extra $0.46) and might get into parcel rate (we’re talking $3-4 PER invite)
• If it’s too stiff to bend over the edge of the counter, it’ll require a parcel rate
• If there is a bump (ie the knot part of a ribbon) it might require a nonmachineable surcharge
• Vertically-addressed envelopes require a nonmachineable surcharge
• Square envelopes require a nonmachineable surcharge
• Wax seals usually require a nonmachineable surcharge
• Thicker papers and embellishments like wax seals can increase the weight of your envelope, meaning you might have to pay for extra ounces.

In general, if you keep to standard papers, and don’t add a ribbon bump or wax seal, you’ll be okay! Here’s a whole post about the post (hah!).

The Cost of Wedding Invitations

Overall, the cost of wedding invitations mostly comes down to the expertise and time you’re paying a designer for, and the materials themselves. If you want to save money but still make something beautiful, I’d recommend looking into some Invitation templates, flat printing, and stick to mid-grade papers with a little texture like eggshell finish! You can use an online RSVP to save money on an RSVP envelope, and add some embellishments yourself if you like a little DIY project.

If you’re not interested in dealing with a lot of the little details, then that’s where a custom designer or semi-custom collection might be more your speed! As with pretty much all things, you can save money by investing time or save time by investing money!