Wedding Bells Blog
save & splurge
Going Paperless
Courtesy Love the Card.
Let’s talk invitations. Generally, there is a lot of paper involved. If you want to be a little less traditional (and reduce the environmental impact of your wedding), consider going paperless (or at least reduce the amount of paper you’re using) with your invitations. This can save you a ton of money, allowing you to save in one area and splurge in another! When I got married, I worked with Love the Card to send out an electronic save the date to ensure friends and family could mark the weekend off in their calendars. Then I set up a wedding website with all of the details of our big day! I used wedquarters.com (but there are lots of options out there) to post where we were registered, how we met, accommodation information and links for out of town guests. Best of all? You can also manage your RSVP process, easily and efficiently, eliminating the need for reply cards. It worked out perfectly and cost less than $100 for everything!
Photography courtesy Christina Gapic.
With the money we saved on invitations, we decided to splurge and have real champagne for the evening, which really helped to create an elegant and festive mood!
Find more local wedding classifieds, including dress, shoes and accessories, at SmartBride Boutique.
Tags: budget, invitations, rsvp, save-the-date, stationery
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5 Responses to “Going Paperless”
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If brides want to go the paper invitation route, but want to be eco-minded, there are environmentally friendly options out there. Here are a few things to consider: When it comes to paper, look for FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified paper. Typically this will have a portion of recycled material, be free from any acid or chlorine. Some papers are even certified carbon neutral.
As far as printing goes, more and more printers are offering waterless printing. Traditional printing mixes ink with large quantities of water. Not only does this waste water resources, but can flush toxins from the ink into our water systems. Hope that helps!
I do agree with both points. Although more and more of us are depending on our computers to tell us about everything, I think it will take a bit of time for everyone to get comfortable with the idea of having wedding invites sent that way. I know I would be fine with it, but I think some people are very ‘traditional’ when it comes to weddings and might find it strange. I think it’s definitely going to be the way of the future though. I’m sure a couple years ago we never would’ve thought soon-to-be-brides would create customized daily blogs about their newest wedding finds but they do! Everything having to do with weddings is ever changing. I definitely agree though that probably too much money is spent on printing invites, menus, table numbers, etc. which could be better spent other ways!
For me an invitation doesn’t necessarily = paper. While I understand what Monica is saying, I think a new generation of brides is demanding different services and using the same online tools (like e-mail and facebook) they use in their everyday life for their weddings too. To be clear, I’m not suggesting people create evites for their wedding, or even a facebook event.
I love the idea of saving on printing/envelopes and postage and splurging on hiring a really amazing graphic designer who could create the perfect ditital image for my save the dates and extend it through the other aspects of the day like invites, table cards etc. You can e-mail the save the date to your guests as a jpeg or a pdf. They can even print it off if they’re so inclined.
Whether it arrives in your mail box, or inbox, I think the image will still give your guest an amazing first impression and an idea of what to expect from your big day.
The image can always be re-used on your paper invites, and on a wedding website for your guests. Most wedding invitation designers I know of create all their artwork digitally anyway, and can probably easily accomodate this type of request.
While I am all for “Going Green”…I am not sure “Going Paperless” is the best title for a blog entry about wedding invitations.
And while as the entry starts out with using the environment as a reason to “go paperless” the reasons sound to be more economical.
Now as a Stationery Store owner I understand the need to be budget savvy and to desire to go green but are invitations to the most special day of your life the best way to do this? I know you have heard this before but they are truly the first impression to your event.
You are inviting the most special people in your life to witness one of the most special ceremonies you will ever take part in and you should show your guest how important this day is to you.
Also, I am all for wedding websites (my store manager is using one currectly for her upcoming wedding) to provide useful information for travel, accomodations and registry info. – do you really want to require people to “log on” to let you know if they can attend?
Just a note from the other side!
Thanks!