How to print my wedding postcard?

June 9, 2009 6:11 PM

We're printing our wedding invitation as a couple of postcards. It's classier then it sounds, but where's the classiest (cheapest) place to print them.

So we're having a (not) small (enough) ceremony and luncheon (to which there is one postcard invitation, and then a larger reception/studio party later in the night to which there's another postcard invitation. For the ceremony guests, we'll put them both in an envelope and send it out normally. For the party only guests we'll stick the postcard in the mail directly. OK: so where can i get digital (or comparably priced) printing, on nice matte stock that feels like it's meant for a wedding and not ladies night at the club? You know? So it works in the envelope and out...?

posted by gilgamix to media & arts (11 comments total)

I've had great luck with Modern Postcard. I've only done glossy things with them, though, not matte.

They have excellent customer service. Give them a call and discuss with them whether or not it's something appropriate for them.
posted by ocherdraco at 6:14 PM on June 9

MOO made beautiful postcards for me. Fast service, lovely card stock, excellent ink quality.
posted by seawallrunner at 6:51 PM on June 9

We did save-the-date postcards using moo.com and were very happy with the results (nice quality, affordable, easy to re-order). However, it doesn't look like they do matte. I thought that our save-the-dates, as well as other postcard save-the-dates I've seen, avoided the "ladies night at the club" look by using a photograph of the couple with text superimposed, meaning that the content and look were very specifically "wedding" rather than "$5 martinis." Not to say you shouldn't do what you want, just that if you hadn't seen other similar postcards, it's worth considering. (Then again, if you're planning a wedding, you may have already seen enough sample invitations to make your eyes bleed...)

If you want matte cardstock, I think the company we used for our invitations, Modern Girl Invitations, would be able to accommodate. They don't advertise postcards specifically, but they seem pretty flexible and their customer service is excellent. Plus, they definitely do invitations/save-the-dates/etc. on cardstock in postcard-appropriate sizes, so it wouldn't be too hard to work with them to get something printed up that you could just slap a stamp on and declare it a postcard. Particularly because you want cards that fit in the envelope you're also sending invitations in, I'd recommend talking to this company.
posted by Meg_Murry at 6:55 PM on June 9

Lots and lots of people in the wedding blogging world rave about VistaPrint and in fact the flat card invitations (like postcards that came with envelopes) that were sent out for my engagement party came from them and I thought the quality was great. They were glossy invitations, but they do offer matte.
posted by echo0720 at 6:59 PM on June 9

Hey, cool... we printed our Save the Dates as postcards. I designed them myself in Photoshop and uploaded it to overnightprints.com. We paid about $40 for 100 of them, double-sided, and they're great quality. The front was semi-glossy and the back was matte. If you decide to go with them, let me know -- I have some 10% off coupons. I can also send you my template if you want. MefiMail me.
posted by nitsuj at 7:05 PM on June 9

We do VistaPrint all.the.time. Sign up for them if you are going to consider them and I can nearly guarantee that you will get an offer for x # of free postcards in no time at all. They will not be ACTUALLY free by the time you apply all the options you want, but we end up paying about $0.12 each for ours (color on one side, black/white on the other, glossy).
posted by Medieval Maven at 7:08 PM on June 9

I use VistaPrint CONSTANTLY, both for myself and my clients. We used them for our Save the Dates, and I actually just did a wedding invitation set with them using oversized and standard postcards hole punched and tied together.

Medieval Maven's advice is spot on: sign up now and wait for the discount offers to come in.

I would be super-confident about Moo as well, but I've never used them for anything but moo cards.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:08 PM on June 9

Beware of Vistaprint, they supposedly have a habit of putting unauthorized charges on their customers' credit cards.

I'm a big fan of Modern Postcard - great customer service, very easy to work with.
posted by Ostara at 8:36 PM on June 9

I was just talking to my fiance about this idea last night! Thanks, AskMe!
posted by like_neon at 2:05 AM on June 10

FWIW I have not ever had a problem with that - in fact, *I* messed up, got charged, needed to fix the order, and they handled it all over the phone and applied the correct amount of credit and so forth. YMMV, clearly. They were originally rec'ed to me by a friend in the advertising biz.
posted by Medieval Maven at 7:52 AM on June 10

If you're smart and uncheck things that should be unchecked, you will not run into the problem that Ostara mentioned with VistaPrint. It's really quite easy, you just have to say no to all their random offers. I have the feeling it's usually people who rushed through the ordering process that feel they got scammed
posted by echo0720 at 8:25 PM on June 10