Bride-to-be Blogger Kathleen: Solving the Stationery

Kathleen and Christian at their engagement shoot. Photo by Allebach Photography.

Holy Moly, have we been busy! I don’t think I’ve accomplished everything I set out to do in August just yet, but I’ve managed to move along on a couple additional things, so I don’t feel too bad. The epic save-the-date thing didn’t work out like we had planned, and I decided to go a different route. I still went with the original idea of using a post card, but I used Wedding Paper Divas to do it for me. It was actually pretty easy and cheap, which was surprising. I also had one of those duh moments when I realized couples would only need one copy of the save-the-date, saving money already! I just received the notice that the save-the-date order has been shipped, so I will let you all know how they look when they arrive.

In addition to ordering our save-the-dates, I also started investigating the invitations. Originally, I thought we would just print them ourselves. However, we would need an actual printer to do that, which we don’t have. So, by the time we would purchase a printer, the ink and all the supplies, we would probably end up spending just as much as we would if we had someone do them for us. Ok, so how does one go about ordering unique, non-fancy, cost effective wedding invitations? You check out Etsy.com. I love Etsy.com. They have tons and tons of cool homemade things and they just so happen to have an entire section dedicated to wedding stuff. I had never really looked at the invitation section, but I thought I’d give it a shot. I ended up ordering three different sets of samples, which include the invitation, the rsvp card and a coordinating envelope. If they fit our needs and we decide to make the big order, they would cost under $1.60 per set. Amazing. I’m not picky about the invitations, so I have no worries that these samples will be just what we were looking for. Fingers crossed!

Just a quick update: Our engagement photos are in! We had a stinking blast on our shoot. We wanted to do something different for our pictures, so we decided to do a water balloon fight. Of course, we had a few “normal” shots before the craziness began, but you can really tell we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Check out Allebach Photography’s website for more pics!

How have you managed to save money on your paper products? Are you happy with the results?

Getting married? Start and end your wedding planning journey with Philadelphia Weddings' guide to the best wedding vendors in the city.