Who can print my wedding invitations?

April 26, 2009 9:01 AM

I'm looking for a website that will let me to design my own wedding invitations, upload the files for professional printing, and provide the specific pocket folder envelopes I want. Full details inside.

OK, so I'm a designer, and I want to design my own wedding invitations. Awesome.

There is a very specific type of wedding invitation I want; it's a tri-fold envelope similar to this with the following components inside:

-Actual invitation (glued to the inside of the envelope)
-Reception card (located in the inside pocket)
-Accommodation Card (inside pocket)
-Reply card (inside pocket)

I'd like to find a professional printer that will give the exact dimensions of each of the above components (based on the envelopes they have), and allow me to design each and upload/email for printing. They can then send me the prints, along with the proper envelopes (either constructed or not, doesn't matter to me).

This seems like a pretty easy request, but a search Google at random for this type of stuff returns so many different results of varying quality. Got any recommendations?

I'm hesitant to buy the envelopes separate from the place I'm having them printed, because I'm afraid the dimensions will be wrong and I'll end up with something messed up.

I need about 100 invitations, and have a budget of about $500 give or take.

Thanks!

posted by c:\awesome to computers & internet (15 comments total)

I should clarify: I don't need to design the invitations from a web app or anything -- I'll be doing that in Photoshop.
posted by c:\awesome at 9:09 AM on April 26

Just to clarify--are you looking strictly for the printer, and you already have all of the components of your invitation, or are you looking for one location that provides both printing as well as the invitation components? (It's early where I am, and the coffee hasn't quite kicked in yet, so apologies if I'm misunderstanding...)

Not sure if you have tried these places yet, but you might give them a shot. I know that Paper Source not only provides the paper components of the invitations, but also does the printing:

There's also the old standby "My Gatsby" which I haven't used myself, but have heard a lot of good things about:

This place seemed to be on the cheaper side:

Not sure where you are located, but you may also try going to a local arts supply store and showing them what you are trying to do. They may have not only the paper and supplies, but the ability to print or at least give you the names of some printers they have used in the past that are reliable.

Good luck with your invitations! I loved designing the invites to my wedding...mostly because I just love playing around with different fonts and papers.
posted by Ham_On_Rye at 9:19 AM on April 26

Hmm...I appear to be link-impaired!
https://www.paper-source.com/cgi-bin/paper/personalize/index.html
http://www.mygatsby.com/folio_pockets/folio_pockets.jsp
http://www.lcipaper.com/specialty/minifolders.shtml
posted by Ham_On_Rye at 9:21 AM on April 26

Ham:

I'd like to find a professional printer that will give the exact dimensions of each of the above components (based on the envelopes they have), and allow me to design each and upload/email for printing. They can then send me the prints, along with the proper envelopes (either constructed or not, doesn't matter to me).

and

I'm hesitant to buy the envelopes separate from the place I'm having them printed, because I'm afraid the dimensions will be wrong and I'll end up with something messed up.

Does that clarify?
posted by c:\awesome at 9:22 AM on April 26

Have you just considered using a local print shop? That way you could be absolutely certain what you're getting into.
posted by rachelpapers at 9:35 AM on April 26

I don't mean to sound snarky or anything, but as a designer you should know your best option would be to team up with a local print shop (that might be really useful for your designer work, by the way), which more than likely will have a vast selection of papers, cards and envelopes and the tools and know-how to build whatever you need. Go there, touch, compare, discuss, choose. And save yourself a lot of grief and don't use Photoshop to design your cards, designers don't do that. Use Illustrator (or Freehand, or Corel Draw, Xpress, Indesign...) or discuss that with your printer.
posted by _dario at 10:33 AM on April 26

seconding a local print shop. i'm designing baby shower invitations and am using a local printer to handle it. you can consult with the printer, get the exact dimensions, and then you can purchase your envelopes either from the printer (with a bit of a markup) or from papersource, etc. a local printer will be able to handle this, and some often have better printing equipment than the fly-by-night sites out there who have nothing more than an inkjet and a prayer.
posted by kerning at 10:39 AM on April 26

or, uh, thirding. stupid preview.
posted by kerning at 10:39 AM on April 26

Wow, what the fuck? I should have specified: I'm a web designer. Sometimes I hate you, Metafilter.
posted by c:\awesome at 10:41 AM on April 26

I did this exact same thing last year, with pretty much the exact same envelope. I could not find them or get them online for some reason, so I ended up going to the local wedding invite design studio and they were kind enough to order the envelopes for me. They ended up costing me about a dollar per envelope, if I remember correctly.

The studio also provided me with an EPS template they used to design for that specific envelope and I was able to use that and Corel Draw to design and set up my invitations. The dimensions turned out to be very precise and although it probably would have been better to have a local print shop print the filler cards, I was able to trim scrapbook paper to size and print them on a color laser. It took a small amount of trial and error, but I was extremely pleased with the finished product. It cost me very little and I was able to have the invitations exactly as I wanted them.

If you'd like any more info, feel free to MeMail me.

Don't hate Metafilter. Metafilter is just trying to help!
posted by bristolcat at 11:27 AM on April 26

C,
For print, it's usually best to work with local print shops, so you can talk things over, touch the merchandise and show them explicitly what you want.

Photoshop is fine, provided you do the finished piece at a high enough resolution. Check with the printer to see what line screen they'll be using and then make dpi in Photoshop at least twice that amount. So if they're using 100 line screen, your dpi should be at least 200. I usually make things a bit larger than they need to be, so that they're output at 50-75%, especially if line art, i.e. type or drawings, are being used.

Congratulations!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:40 PM on April 26

I'm hesitant to buy the envelopes separate from the place I'm having them printed, because I'm afraid the dimensions will be wrong and I'll end up with something messed up.

Paper sizes are standardized, so you shouldn't really have a problem.

If you're looking for simple offset printing, a local print shop should be fine, but I'm not sure that they can do white ink on colored paper like you linked. You might have to go with another style if that's what you want.
posted by chiraena at 12:48 PM on April 26

We had our wedding invites printed by a commercial printer (they did the stationary for the place I was working at the time.) It was really easy and FUN even to sit down and look through paper and ink options. (We went with jade green paper/envelopes and purple ink.)

Because we were sitting down talking paper, we realized we had extra space on the standard sheet of paper so we could print bookmarks (in addition to the response postcard, thank you cards, and a big invite) that we used as part of the wedding favors. We spent about $250 on invites (but some of that was due to having to buy big boxes of envelopes that we are still using today 10 years later! because the color was funky.)

So Nthing a local commercial printer.
posted by vespabelle at 1:43 PM on April 26

I'm hesitant to buy the envelopes separate from the place I'm having them printed, because I'm afraid the dimensions will be wrong and I'll end up with something messed up.

Well, don't be. Literally tens of thousands of us have done this and while it's a little intimidating because this isn't a cheap print job, it also isn't rocket science.

Buy your envelopments online first. Cut plain stock to the dimensions of all four invitation pieces, and take one complete faked up invitation to a local printer. Let them specify the file sizes and dimensions they want from you to deliver the trim sizes you need. Then make sure you understand trim sizes.

Either that, or see if you can get ahold of the Envelopments EPS templates.
posted by DarlingBri at 3:48 PM on April 26

I used to design wedding invites, and the best luck I had with printing was a local shop. They do this kind of thing all the time, and it shouldn't be a problem at all.
posted by pyjammy at 10:25 AM on April 27