I invite you to invite everyone else

So I have seen many invitations over the years - my father is a pastor and we have had our fair share of weddings since I could remember. I would get excited when I allowed to open the envelopes and check out each piece in a extensive creative check.

Now I know that those brides can have the tiniest piece of mind that those cards they spent hundreds of dollars on were well appreciated.

I had no idea how much wedding invitations were - it's pretty crazy. As a guest, I appreciate the cards and try to hold on to them until at least the end of the wedding (until it inevitably gets lost at the hotel, after it's use of the map of directions and reception address is up). Therefore, I can only imagine that most other guests do the same. Which equals a lot of money on something that is only really going towards a maid's trashcan in the end.

So we decided to make our own. We actually got very lucky and went to a store going out of business (it was one of the stores always way too overpriced, however I do feel for the employees becoming unemployed soon), and got a great deal. So now we have the paper and create our own hopefully creative and discounted invites.

On the other hand, here are some amazing invitation websites if you don't want to worry about throwing your fiance's printer out the window when it decides to mess up when you try to print them out on your own (disclosure: I did not use any of these companies for my invites):

Icing on the Cake Designs - These are amazing, creative invites. A little pricey for our budget, but probably a good deal if we would've saved for more than a few months.

VP On Sale - Great deal and it looks like they really take care of you.

David's Bridal - Yep, they have dresses, tuxes, and even invitations! They are nicely coordinated and quite cute. I also like that they have reviews from real brides.

Vista Print - I used them for my save-the-dates and loved them.

For the theater-themed weddings - Invitation Consultants - so cute and some are more expensive than others, but if you don't want to worry about designing them on your own, these are awesome!

Another great website for the theater folks: Invitation Box

For the photo folks these sites are awesome:

Photo Card Chef

Photo Wedlock Invitations

Some other reviews I found online:

"go to printsmadeeasy.com they are really cheap and professional. You'll have to use the postcards section but it can be easily transformed into invites. I used it for my sisters wedding last year. 300 cards for 29.99 plus shipping."

"I am a graphic designer and I use VistaPrint for a lot of things. I did not use them for my wedding invitations, as I created my own unique ones. However, I did use VistaPrint for response cards. I got 100 postcards for about $8.00. I waited until they had a special (which is pretty much once every other day), and uploaded my own design that was printed in glossy color. On the reverse side, I had them print me and my fiance's address in black and white. I would definitely recommend using them for response cards.

The materials I purchased for my invitations came in packs of 50. I need about 60 invitations, so I am considering getting 10 or so from VistaPrint to send to a few people that I know probably aren't coming anyway. They will be nice, just not as nice as the ones I custom made. I would definitely say that they are better than any you'd buy at Wal-Mart and print at home. Their print quality is fabulous!"

"not sure your budget but willowtreelane.com has complete invitation packages for cheap i got 100 invites with everything you need to go with them for $93"

"I used Vista Print for invitations to my casual outdoor wedding. The service was prompt and very cost effective. I got very simple, tasteful invites, response cards, thank you cards, and envelopes all for less than I would have paid for invitations alone from another source.
Highly recommended. There is a lot of freedom in design options and you do not have to use cookie cutter formats or text."

"I used VistaPrint for our company business cards and they came out great. I have a wedding website which I sell wedding invitations at low to high prices. Just click on the link with the flashing invitations at http://weddingsuppliesunlimited.com."

"Mine were $500.00 for 175 and I made them but I used high quality paper. You can make them as cheap as $2 per set
http://www.budgetweddinginvitations.com/...

So look here and you can see what you can get at what price so the cheapest you could do is about $150.00-200.00"

"Like everyone has said, it does depend on where you get them and the like. I bought mine at Office Max and made them myself! Everyone loved them and had no idea we did them at home.

It was a white overlay with text over a picture of the two of us in black and white. I loved them.

Orientaltrading.com has the exact ones I bought in Office Max. Here's the link. http://www.orientaltrading.com/applicati..."