— Looking at the wedding stationery checklists online, you would think that it’s going to cost an arm and a leg just to get the paper supplies you need for a wedding. We found that a lot of these items were not necessary or could be accommodated in other ways much more cheaply or even at no cost.
1. Engagement party invitation
When each of my daughters got engaged, we just had a family dinner or a picnic to celebrate. We just emailed or texted whoever we were inviting. We kept it simple.
2. Bridal shower invitation
For my first daughter, I sent out an email invitation using Punchbowl to invite the guests to the bridal shower which was held at a cute little restaurant. For my second daughter, my oldest daughter was the Matron of Honor and she took care of inviting everyone. She also used an online invitation and then followed up by texting.
3. Bridal shower thank-you cards
Both my daughters used the thank-you notes that they already had or purchased some from a local source. Nothing fancy or engraved.
4. Bachelorette party invitations
With my first daughter, we only had six weeks to plan the wedding, and she had a very small wedding party, only her younger sisters, so she did not have a bachelorette party.
With my second daughter, we had almost two years to plan. So my oldest daughter, being the Matron of Honor planned a small bachelorette party for her. It just involved the girls who were in the wedding party or helping with the wedding, so she emailed or texted them the information.
5. Response card and self-addressed stamped envelope
Both my daughters had set up a wedding website with a place to RSVP. So we just included the website address on the invitation so that people could submit their RSVP there. No response card required. This saved us quite a bit.
6. Rehearsal dinner invitations
The mother of the groom took care of these. And I believe she just emailed everyone. And I contacted the people on my side to give them the information. The bride also included the rehearsal dinner information on her wedding website and reminded everyone in the wedding party via text.
7. Directions or map card
These days, almost everyone has a map app on their phone. So we did not think printing a map card was necessary. Plus, the wedding websites each of my daughters used also listed the location and provided directions.
However, with my second daughter, since the lodge was so new, the address was a bit confusing, as well as where to park; so it might have been a good idea to include a map with the invitation in the envelope. We could have just printed out some on the computer, cut them to size, and inserted them when we mailed the invitations.
8. Hotel accommodations card
We put the contact information for several hotels in the area on the wedding website, so the guests could find the information there. We did not print a separate card for that purpose.
9. Welcome basket tag
We chose not to make welcome bags or baskets for the out-of-town guests. This is a nice gesture, but it seemed unnecessary and just would have added more expense. It might be more appropriate for a destination wedding.
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10. Ceremony program
We did print a ceremony program for my first daughter’s wedding, using Vistaprint.com. As for my second daughter, she put all of the information normally in the program on her wedding website, so people could see it there when they RSVP’d.
Being an outdoor wedding, we did not want extra paper to be littering the area, so we chose not to do a wedding program. Plus, the ceremony was very short and did not have any special music, readings, or any additional elements that would have normally gone into a program.
11. Reserved seating cards
For my first daughter’s wedding, we just used some index cards and wrote the names of the people we were reserving seats for and taped them to the chairs.
For my second daughter’s wedding, we printed them out on the computer. Then I totally forgot to put them on the chairs before the wedding, causing a bit of confusion. Haha! Anyway, we did not order special cards from a printing company.
12. Place cards
We chose to do just finger food at my first daughter’s wedding, so we did not have table settings. No place cards required. For my second daughter’s wedding, we made place cards by cutting cardstock and wrote them out by hand with a fine tip marker. My daughter had a pretty corner punch that she used to make the corners fancy. You could also use blank business cards by Avery that come in perforated sheets.
13. Table number cards
We did not use tables for my first daughter’s wedding reception, so this was not on our list. My second daughter did find some table number cards at Michael’s and bought a set. But it would have been very easy to make some on the computer and print them out on cardstock paper and cut them apart with a paper cutter.
14. Menu cards
We did not use menu cards for either of our daughters’ weddings. We did write out some labels on small cards to put near the food to identify them.
15. Favor tags
For my first daughter’s wedding, the favors were little kissing bells and all we did was tie some miniature flowers and ribbon to them.
For my second daughter’s wedding, we had little tubes of bubbles and we found an inexpensive place to order personalized labels for them. At the last minute, we also added some pots of miniature succulents and we just stamped those with their initials instead of making tags.
Conclusion
You can save a lot of money on wedding stationery by doing things yourself either by hand or on a computer if you have a printer. Not everything has to be fancy or ordered from a stationer. People don’t mind if you keep things simple. And it will help your wallet. 🙂
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
