There is nothing I love more than receiving a wedding invitation in the mail. Everything about a wedding invitation gets my juices flowing from the size of the envelope, the choice of stamp, whether or not the address is handwritten, the wording of the invitation itself and even the extra inserts for pre-wedding festivities. It is the first glimpse into the wedding and I just love getting a peak into what the wedding will be like.
In TNIB style, I wanted to be as economical as possible about my own wedding invitations but still wanted the invitation to be a beautiful reflection of the wedding we were planning. I researched options for ordering wedding invitations locally but since we were already planning our proverbial mother-daughter shopping trip to India for my wedding outfits, we added invitations to the list too.
Economically speaking, India proved to be a much better option. A four insert invitation (one for the hand written note, one for the Pretty in Pink Sangeet, one for the wedding itself and one for the Doli & Dinner) plus response and accommodation cards worked out to be around $4 per invitation. Even DIY brides will have trouble getting it done for less than that!
However, there were a few unanticipated costs along the way. First, the invitations were not ready before we left (which is not surprising for India where everything starts with a hanji hanji and ends with a nahiji nahiji ). As a result they needed to be shipped from India to the US. You can well imagine that 150 invitations, which included four cards per invitation plus two inserts and the envelopes all on heavy card stock ends up weighing quite a bit. The shop which made my invitations generously offered to ship it (at an extra and exorbitant cost). Lucky for me, I have family in New Delhi who were able to run around and find the most economical shipment method.
The second cost I did not consider was postage. My odd sized envelope (a perfect square) cost more to mail than a regular sized envelope. So instead of a typical single postage stamp on each envelope, I ended up with three or four stamps (which looks way less cute!) on each envelope. That adds up when you are mailing 150 invitations.
Even with these extra costs, ordering wedding invitations from India worked out to be more economical than sourcing locally. If you factor in frustration as part of the cost of then you might be running about even!
Great post and sorry to hear about your experience with printers in India. I had a similar experience where the there was a lot of back and forth between the printer and myself when designing my brother’s wedding invitation. Every time revisions were made, whether it was text, layout or design and sent electronically, something else would inevitably be wrong. While the price was great, the headache was not worth it and for that reason I decided to no longer print any of the invitations I design in India.
As for postage, a new stamp, the 64-cent Butterfly stamp, was released by the USPS this spring during the National Stationery Show in May. As a designer, I was lucky enough to attend the unveiling of this stamp at the show and learned that the stamp is designed to be used on cards that have an irregular shape and require additional postage. . It was created in conjunction with the Greeting Card Association for the customer’s convenience.
Sneha
Chic Papier
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Thanks for your fabulous comment! I wish I knew about the .64 cent stamp before! Even then I would have needed a couple of those to post the darn things. Would love to learn more about what you do. Perhaps we can feature you on the blog. Please email me at akipeed@gmail.com