Is It Cheaper To Print Invitations At Home?

You have an occasion, and you’re considering how to get the invitation cards done without wasting many resources. Should you go to a local store and get it done but spend more, or do it yourself? If you choose the second option you might also think that Is It Cheaper To Print Invitations At Home?

Printing invitation cards at home can be relatively cheaper and less stressful, considering the market expenditure, time, and overall cost. Although, it cannot be possible without the necessary equipment like; cardstock, paper stock, printer, and ink.

Printing invitations at home can help reduce the cost of your ceremony. However, it can be time-consuming to get a perfect home-printed invitation card. So, let’s consider everything you need to know about this option below.

Is It Cheaper To Print Invitations At Home?

Is It Cheaper To Print Invitations At Home? Printing your invitation at home is more cost-effective, time-conservative, and less stressful than going to a printing press. Although the overall delivery might not be as professional as that of a printing press, you can still do a nice job if you have some design skills. 

The Benefits of Printing Invitations at Home

1. Can Save You Cost

One major benefit of printing your invitation card DIY method is that it saves the cost of external expertise. While we agree that professional experience is ideal, the cost of hiring a professional to do the printing for you will cost more. Also, besides paying for professional expertise, you’d need to pay for the stated printing rate at the printing press.

But at home, you can print everything at a lower price. You even stand an additional advantage if you already have design skills.

2. Allows You to Dictate The Design of Your Way

Printing at home gives you the leverage to perform the designs your way. While testing might not be the most recommended option, you get to design the invitation cards the way that fits best to your taste.

3. You Don’t Have to Pay for Someone Else’s Error.

When printing your invitation card at home, you stand a higher chance of designing your invitation without errors. One common problem about printing from a professional press is encountering errors on your card from the expert. When this happens, the cost of correction and reprinting will be more expensive. So, printing at home enables you to pay more attention to your printing project.

Now that we’ve seen the benefits of printing your invitation at home, let’s see some differences between printing it at home and doing it professionally.

Printing At Home vs. Printing Professionally

There are certain limitations in printing your invitation at home compared with printing them professionally.

Quality

The quality might be substandard because you are limited to certain tools and features. But you can still do a really nice DIY invitation on your own, though it might not meet the professional standards.

Depending on your choice of the quality of invitation you want, you can either go for the cheaper home-printed invitations or the professional ones if you are up to it.

Complexity of the Work

The work involved in putting together an invitation card is quite complicated. From the cutting of papers, getting the suitable templates, the right ink, trimming down to the right shapes, lining it up, to bringing it to a perfect look is not really an easy task. If your stationeries are not in order, it can be difficult to carry out this task. Remember, you still have to produce these cards in multiples to reach the number of guests. But when you print professionally, some of all these processes will be handled by experts in a shorter time frame.

Time Barrier

If you are considering printing at home, you need to start very early to meet up time intervals. You need to learn how to buffer in case of errors. With a professional company, you can place a rush on them to deliver your invites according to your timing.

Budget

Taking your invitation to a professional company is a big no if you are on a budget. It is way cheaper to print your invitation at home than to go to professional companies because they tend to charge more. You can opt for getting a free template to design and print your invitations on your own to fit your budget.

Style and Type of the Invitation

Printing your invitation at home may not give it a professional and standard look. It is often tough to perfect your ideas on free templates. If you have a unique or special design in mind, it can be difficult to get because free templates do not offer sophisticated designs.

For more beautiful designs like foil wedding invitations, letterpress, print on wood, white ink, or similar designs, you might want to opt for some professional touch. However, going for professionalism might cost a lot for your invitation.

How to Print Invitations At Home

In this section, we’d consider the steps in printing your invitations at home. They are below:

Measure and Identify the Dimensions of Your invitation card

• Measure the width and height of the card to be printed with a ruler: to get the correct size of the print and customize it on the printer driver for duplicate printings.
• Choose your envelope size – choose envelops that are 1/8 to ¼ larger than your invitation cards for a standard look.

Here are some trending dimensions for your invitations

• 5 × 8.75 inches (large invitation)
• 5 × 5 inches (RSVP card)
• 5 × 7.5 inches (large invitation)
• 4 × 9.25 inches (thin invitation)
• 25 × 5.5 inches (response card)
• 5 × 7 inches (standard invitation)
• 25 × 5.25 inches (square invitation)
• 5 × 6.25 inches (response card)

Make Your Printing Templates to the Dimension of Your Card

Get a printing template using a preferred page layout or Microsoft Word.

• Create a new document
• Find the page setup area and customize the dimension field
• Enter the right measurement of the card. (width and height)

Ensure the documents on the screen are the same as the measurement of the invitation card before formatting and typing in your words.

Add Pictures If Necessary

This is optional. If you decide you need to upload a photo to your cards, go for the free printable invitation maker, which allows you access to the file on your pc, social media accounts, or phone. By tapping on the “Add More” option.

However, pictures give the invitation a more customized and formal appearance to the guest. You can even add some personal designs on the invitation cards with calligraphy or splashes of watercolor.

Customize the Designs

You can customize the design to suit your fancy. Explore different fonts and colors to satisfy your taste. You can always see the change made once you customize anything on the screen.

Decorative basics can also be added to beautify the cards, using either a contemporary design or a simple style design.

Make sure to line up tour text correctly because it is one of the mandatory factors. Arrange short phrases to the center of the designs.

Fill Cards in Paper Tray and Adjust the Plastic Guide According

The location of the tray varies from printer to printer, depending on its model.

Load a sample card to the printer’s manual feed tray to see the sample when the invitation card templates appear on the screen.

Ensure the cards fit properly in the plastic adjustment.

Change the Automatic Paper Seize of 8 1/ 2 × 11 to Your Desired Card Size

Every printer has its standard size; so, customize the printer to your card size. Therefore, always consider the printer output when sorting for a printer for cardstock invitation.

Do not print your cards on the standard size of 8 1/2 × 11. If the invite is to be posted as a letter, using a larger size of 6 1/8 inches by 11 ½ inches will cost more to post them. To help stay on a budget while printing your cards at home, consider using the standard size envelope for your invitation instead of customizing the size.

N/B: always consider checking out the envelope sizes before designing your invitation cards so that they can fit in properly.

Some common invite sizes: 6 3/8 by 8 7/8 inches, 5 1/2 by 7 1/2 inches, and 4 ½ by 6 1/4 inches. These sizes fit into standard envelopes perfectly.

Print a Sample Card First

Ensure that you print one to test its achievement. Once you successfully print one, you can print the rest. It is advised to print 20 for each batch on your printer.

Packing

The packing of the invitation should complement the invitation and the color and designs should be in like colors and the typography too.

Besides, the packaging should pair with the contents. The adorning designs on the packing should be in line with the invitation.

Conclusion

Is It Cheaper To Print Invitations At Home? Printing invitation cards at home is cheaper, though it requires some more attention to detail to bring out an ideal outlook. With the above steps on designing your invitation cards at home, you might opt for doing them yourself instead of taking them to professionals next time since it is cheaper and helps you stay on a budget.