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I am an invite NON-DIYer... I purchased my invites (Falling Petals) from WeddingPaperDivas.com and I absolutely love them. I think you may be able to find creativity from an Etsy seller but as in all online purchases be sure to check them out before purchasing. I love Etsy and I am so glad I have found them.
Good Luck!
I ended up DIYing my invitations but I had a blast looking at websites to order from. If I were making more than 50, I certainly would have ordered invitations! I really liked Invitation Consultants. Once you start looking, you'll find a variety of options.
i'm not DIY'ing... we want a very classic, traditional invitation (ecru rectangle, embossed frame, the boring kind lol), and i believe we'll pay less than most DIY'ers.
I am on the fence. Like you, I will be extremely busy and also don't want to risk them looking less than perfect. But Miss Yorkie's post today totally inspired me! So we will see. It may depend on how staggering the costs for non-DIY invites turn out to be.
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I'm not going to DIY...I was going to, but my Mom thought I was nuts and convinced me to talk at least to a card vendor before I decided. I am getting them designed in India, which brings the cost down a lot. But I am getting something that I like and is indeed very unique and personal. I would think you can have a similar experience on Etsy...and I suspect pricing will be similar (this card is expensive for India, but less expensive than the DIY kit I looked at). My sister DIY-ed hers, and they did cost more than mine...so esp. if you are having many inserts, the price goes up anyway b/c it's the cost of paper. If you buy from a vendor, they probably get paper in much larger bulk volumes than you'd buy (our paper is all imported French cardstock anyway), and so it can still be a better deal. I've had to let go of being so exacting, but the card designer is talented so I like what she came up with.
I was convinced that I could DIY invitations cheaper than I could buy them. Not necessarily the case! I went ultra simple, but even so, I kinda wish I had purchased them via etsy or gone bought the letterpress printables from target instead. They were a lot of time and headache, and though I think they were worth it in the end, I'm not sure I'd do it over again!
worcesterbride -- where did you get your invites from? that's the route we are looking to go too...
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I love a good craft project, but I wasn't up for invitations. My perfectionism would have meant making 3x as many as we wanted to send out.
Soooo, I followed my friend's recommendation and found an inexpensive, but still good quality, invitation at CostCo. Their online partner is eInvite.com, and you can order samples for a dollar or two, design custom wording, and get an online proof. Ours arrived early and in perfect shape.
Saving money on invitations allowed us to get photo stamps from zazzle, which were a huge hit, especially with our family members living abroad who had never seen them and with my grandfather who is a retired rural mail carrier.
Etsy has a ton of great designers! I do invitation designs for a living so I have worked with a lot of brides that want the DIY look but dont have the time, energy or creativity. :)
Also, many designers offer the option that they do the design work, and give you the designs to print at home. So this way they are semi-DIY and you still get to take credit for some of the hard work! That can also be a money saver too! Good luck!
We didn't DIY our invites, however we will be DIYing the other paper products. We got our invites through Write Occasions (vendor in Denver) and the invites are Luscious Verde. I am way excited as we just sent back the proof this morning. I didn't want to DIY because it is such a huge thing to attempt without previous experience. To make it our own, my FI drew an amazing background image that will go on the invites themselves.
I'm designing them, but I think {unless I get my own letterpress sooner than I think} I'm going to have them printed by another letterpresser {that's not a word!} after that.
We were not going to DIY, but we budgeted the time and at less than $2 an invite the price was right!
I'm sure you can find someone to meet your goals and pricepoint! Good luck :)
I am not DIY-ing anything! Haha. As much as I love the look of and thought behind DIY invitations, etc., I do not have the talent, energy or time to properly make my own. I also found etsy to be pretty overwhelming (which is embarrassing because I realize that etsy is like Mecca for most brides... I just couldn't get the hang of it). I am very lucky, though, because my best friend who is a DIY rock star and recent bride (and actually wrote about her wedding as a bee - hi, Mrs. Magnolia!) started her own business recently in the wedding planning/design industry and helped me out tremendously. She made my shower invites, bridal luncheon invites, and booklets for my out of town guests. They are fantastic. If I hadn't already ordered my invites and programs, she would be making those, too. I wanted to post because I think something like this is perfect for those brides that don't want to DIY but also don't want to spend loads of money on paper. The company is called Jennifer Thomas Designs, and the website is www.jenniferthomasdesigns.com. She's awesome and very reasonable! And she's also incredibly knowledgeable - she's been a lifesaver during my wedding planning. I hope she can help some of you out!
Like KateMW, I am designing them but then sending them to be letterpressed. I just decided to use Studio On Fire - they have tons of ideas for cutting costs. The paper stuff is our splurge. I showed FI a picture of using a square doily instead of an inner envelope and for some reason he has latched onto this idea and won't let go. We'll see how that part goes.... I know calligraphy, so I'll do all the addressing too.
Ooo - I wish I could do letterpress!
We're going with weddingpaperdivas too. It was the first one I saw and was sold from the get go (have made a lot of decisions that way, actually!) The design is ornamental scroll. Very traditional, yet whimsical. Part of me was bummed that I'm not featuring my colors - eggplant and chartreuse - in the invites, but we're supplementing with black and ivory, so it all works out.
PS - I am having to DIY on the menus, programs, table numbers, etc. and am curious if that's who the rest of you did it too -- premade invites but supplementing with DIY stuff (trying to make it look as much like the invites as possible)?
Thanks for reassuring me, everyone! I think we will do like misswright and some others have: DIY some other paper products but order invitations. Now I just need to find some I like!
I purchased my invites from Target and I love them. They had the perfect shade of bronze envelopes. We are going to try a couple of interesting things to give them more pizzazz. We might change out the card stock to a heavier weight and a friend of ours created a beautiful monogram for us to use on one side of the invite. We also have a stamp with our retrun address from expressionary.com.
I'm still debating on whether I will or not but leaning more towards just purchasing them online from weddingdivas (they just got some new ones that I like) Part of me wants to create them myself but I don't have Publisher so if I include that as part of the invitation expense then it's better to get them online. Three people I know got married recently and all three of them told me that their only advice is not to do my own invites, they did and said it was not worth all the trouble they had to go through. FizicsGirl you mentioned you are getting yours from India, can you share the website you are using?
After about 4 months of long debates of about the wedding invites we went with ones from The American Wedding. We actually began our journey with getting them custom made in Indonesia then opted for DIY and finally decided that we don't have to time to DIY them but I will add a ribbon to make them stand out. I am doing my own calligraphy and I am planning on DIY the rest of the things that we need. 
Ha! There's no way that I would take on the job of doing my own invitations! I'm having them letterpressed by Twin Raven's Press.
Yes, I might DIY a flat print menu...but that's about it.
Wow, just found some invites I love on Etsy! They're booklet style, so they have elements of pocketfolds, but I love how its like a little storybook! http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=24831148&ref=sr_gallery_9&&ga_search_query=purple+invitations&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_page=3&includes[]=tags&includes[]=title
I am not a DIY kind of girl either. I don't trust myself!!! We used Erin the owner of "Proud to Plan" (www.proudtoplan.com) . She did an amazing job at amazing prices - I can't say enough great things about her and her work.
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not a DIY gal either (AT ALL). we used inkylivie on etsy.com
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I really admire all you Bees that have DIYed your beautiful invites, BUT I am going to be too busy over the next year to do hardly any DIY projects! The two advantages of DIY invites I really want are A) a very personal, unique look & feel and B) less expensive than getting traditional stationery. I was hoping Etsy would be a good route to achieving this without having to do it myself! Any experiences from non-DIYers?