I bought a kit at Staples that had pretty cardstock, envelopes, small cards, and return envelopes- it was like $25 for 50 invitations. Then I went to Michael's and bought some ribbon to tie around/make bows with. I just formatted it in Word and printed them up on a regular home printer. HTH!
We're printing them on cardstock on our home inkjet printer. Surprisingly, a lot of invitation companies just use an inkjet printer, but charge you a bundle. Unless you want thermal printing or letterpress, a good quality home printer will work just fine.
You can get the cardstock from a craft store or from an online paper company (but you'll want to order samples before you buy a whole bunch of it. Just to get an idea of the true color of the paper).
I don't know anything about templates. I'm just using my imagination...
I make custome invites as a freelance job. I get most of my paper from
Papersource.com (sort of expensive, but very different selection)
envelopemall.com (fabulous envelope selection and great prices)
paperandmore.com (GREAT selection of paper and vellum and stuff, also good prices and you can get samples for like 25 cents a piece and they come really fast so you can match colors and stuff.)
go to a website like wedding channel.com or the knot.com for ideas and wording examples.
If you want ideas tell me your colors, theme, what the dresses look like etc and I would love to throw some ideas out there.
My sister made mine... she used plain white cardstock from Michael's wedding section, and we used my home inkjet printer (fresh cartridge, "best" setting). Then she hole-punched and added the ribbon.
I can't remember where I got the templates.... I want to say I did a search online, or maybe it came with the cardstock. Also check Office Max/Staples... they probably sell template CDs and invitation kits pretty cheap.
I don't regret having my sister make the invitations. They looked cute, and no one saves them anyway.
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"We live in an age where unnecessary things are our only necessities." --Oscar Wilde
I bought mine at Michaels and i believe these are the ones. I used a really pretty raspberry colored font and printed them out on an inkjet. They were perfect for our small casual beach wedding.
When my sister got married I did her invites for her. I got a kit from theknot.com that had beautiful ivory card stock with embossed vines around the edges. It also had software to help you word the invites and center it appropriately for the invites. I printed on a color laser printer in purple ink (which was her color). I also made really pretty labels that looked like calligraphy in the same color purple on clear labels for the return addresses, reception return envelopes and the invites. We sent out about 125 invites and the total cost was only like $80.
I found this site that also pretty cool DIY stationary for reasonable prices.