What do you print wedding invites on?

08 Apr.,2024

 

So you’ve decided to DIY your wedding invitations. Whether you’re designing everything from scratch or using one of our invitation templates, there are a few options for printing wedding invitations!

You might consider printing your wedding invitations at home. If you have a small quantity of invitations and a very high quality printer, this might be a good option! Otherwise, we recommend outsourcing wedding invitations to a professional printer – here’s why.

Challenges of Printing Wedding Invitations at Home

At first glance, printing wedding invitations on a home printer might seem like the easiest, cheapest, and quickest way. We urge you to consider a few things before printing your own invites!

  • Cost. The actual cost. Consider ink (especially if you’re opting for a colorful design or full flood background), paper (you’ll want to use a nice or thicker cardstock), a paper trimmer (unless you find pre-cut cardstock to the dimensions you need)
  • Time. Although printing can be done while you work on other tasks, take into account the time it will take to cut down each piece of paper. Often forgotten is the time to set up for a test print – usually there are a couple runs before you get the formatting perfectly from screen to product, so allow extra time for this part of the process!
  • Quality. Unless you own a high quality printer, often the quality of DIY invitations printed at home are a little “meh”. Many home printers don’t handle too thick of paper and colors + overall quality aren’t close to that you can get from using an industrial machine.

When you choose to outsource your printing, you don’t have to worry about ink, paper, cutting, quality — and most importantly, time and stress!

Where to Print Wedding Invitations

Your wedding invitations are the first impression of your big day and set the tone for the entire event. Having quality printing and nice paper really does make a difference. Just because you’re DIYing doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have the best!

When I started the someday paper co template shop after being a boutique invitation designer for over 7 years, I made it a priority to find a printing partner that would give my customers as good a product as my previous clients.

I ordered samples from various companies, researched their timelines, prices, options, and company values – and here’s my favorite places to print!

Prints of Love

Prints of Love is my go to printing partner for my template customers. It’s so incredibly easy to use and their printing is top notch! After you edit your template, download as a PDF, then upload it to Prints of Love. You can choose your quantity, paper type (I love their matte paper for wedding invitations!), and if you want to add free envelopes (yes, please!).

Beyond offering easy ordering and high quality printing, Prints of Love is QUICK! If you need fast wedding invitations, they can handle it. They ship all orders out in 2-3 business days and offer free 2-3 day shipping for US customers! In the wedding world, that’s lightning fast – with no rush fees. *Prints of Love also offers international shipping for a charge.

And if that isn’t enough – they plant a tree in your name when you place an order. Does it get any better than that?

Maybe ‘cause Prints of Love can also print large format signs, programs, menus, place cards – and even envelopes!

Cards and Pockets

If you’re using one of our DIY pocket wedding invitation templates, we recommend Cards and Pockets for printing. The pieces needed to fit in the pocket style invitation are a little different than standard sizes, but Cards and Pockets offers these sizes directly on their website.

For the main invitation, we recommend choosing the 4.5×6.5 so it fits nicely when glued in the pocket folder. The insert cards should all be 3.5 inches wide and if you want to do the stacking effect, we recommend a 3.5×5, 3.5×5.75, and 3.5×6.5. Our pocket templates include all the pieces at this size for multiple insert cards.

Cards and Pocket turnaround can be a little longer than Prints of Love, so definitely order in advance and be patient. If you aren’t worried about time, you can always order sample proofs with them before placing a full order. This is great if you want to see colors in person before committing!

You can also use Cards and Pockets for printing your own envelope liners and belly bands!

Our pocket templates include full, step-by-step directions for ordering everything as shown.

Local Print Shops

Although both of the printing companies we’ve mentioned are small businesses, we are always in favor of supporting local too! If you want to be more involved in the wedding invitation printing process, we recommend finding a local print shop. They’ll often be able to guide you on choosing the perfect paper and can help with file set up too!

A quick online search can lead you to some great finds – just give them a call, ask if they can print wedding invitations, and set up a time to stop by. Make sure they offer a thick cardstock option and see if they’ll allow you to do a printed proof (most will!).

Most local print shops can have your wedding invitations printed within a week!

Office Supply Stores

Although places like FedEx, Staples, and OfficeMax are great for large format signs, they’re not our favorite for printing wedding invitations. Through personal experience, as well as feedback from our customers, the quality isn’t quite up to that of the other options we mentioned. Sometimes it’s a lack of nice paper, issues when cutting, or just faded colors – these are a last resort printing option for us!

Some of the above links are affiliate links meaning we can receive a compensation if you purchase, at no cost to you. We only recommend companies and products we know, trust, and love!

Shopping small and supporting local are always great when it leads to an excellent final product! Our goal is to make the wedding invitation process as easy (and beautiful) as possible for you, so let us know if you have any questions about printing!

If you’re looking to print your own invitations at home on “normal” card-stock paper, you’ll notice something. Your printed invitations are dull! Because I make party decorations, I am always looking for the best paper to print invitations, as well as welcome signs, food signs, and banners. And if you’ve read about The Best Printer to Print Heavy Cardstock, then you know I’m well versed in this whole “printing thing”. However, when I used regular card stock paper – even on my amazing printer – the printed invitations weren’t as vibrant as I would like. So let’s talk about The Best Paper to Print Invitations at Home.

Please note, this page contains affiliate links to products I recommend. If you purchase something from this page, I may receive a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. For additional information, please see my privacy and disclosures page.

How it all started

As mentioned, I love creating invitations and other printed items for parties! And I create a LOT of them! However, in this digital world, people are looking to print your own invitations by purchasing digital invitations online. For example, they might buy a digital invitation from my Etsy shop or with one of my custom parties. Therefore, people are then faced with the perplexing question of where and how to print your own invitations. So I wanted to share with you The Best Paper to Print Invitations and other prints at home.

Side note: I did a Facebook Live on this VERY topic, so if you’d rather watch the video, it’s right here! 🙂

The Myth About Printing Beautiful Invitations

Do you think that printing invitations at home – or any other item you plan to print – has something to do with your printer? Even though I have written blogs like, The Best Printer for Cardstock Invitations, I have a big secret for you that will make you so excited to print your own invitations at home!

It’s not your printer! It’s your paper! ::GASP!:::

That’s right. The secret is out people. The right paper for printing invitations is EVERYTHING! So let me tell you about the best paper for printing invitations and enlarged prints.

Things to know first

Before your get started printing invitations at home, there’s one thing to check. Firstly, check that your printer does a little thing called ‘borderless printing’. This means that you can print invitations all the way to the edge of the paper. This is important when printing invitations where the design goes all the way to the edge. If your design doesn’t go all the way to the edge, then after you read this blog about the best paper, make sure to head over to How to Print Invitations Without a Borderless Printer.

Printing 5 x 7 Invitations at home

First, for those of you who do have “borderless printing”, you can most definitely print your own invitations on 5 x 7 sheets of paper.

Let’s talk light cardstock. You may know that most printers don’t print on heavy cardstock paper. However, if you don’t know, feel free to read The Best Printer for Cardstock Invitations for more information. Unfortunately, if you don’t have a special printer, you won’t be able to print on heavy cardstock invitation paper. If that’s the case, I have the perfect light cardstock paper for your invitations.

The cardstock paper I recommend, for example, for your invitations is this InkPress Media 5 x 7 paper. This cardstock paper prints vibrant colors and is what I typically use to print my invitations.

Now believe me, I have tested other paper for printing invitations and party decorations and it definitely doesn’t compare. In fact, I have run out of this paper before when printing party invitations and tried to use regular card stock paper from the craft store. It was an epic fail.

The Best Paper to Print Invitations – Before and After

Let me prove it to you. Here’s a side by side. Below are invitations that I printed at home on two different kinds of 5 x 7 paper. The regular card stock paper is on the top, while the The 5 x 7 Inkpress paper that I recommend is on the bottom. Pretty clear difference right?

Comparing Printed Invitations:
Regular Card stock paper (TOP) The recommended 5 x 7 paper (BOTTOM)

The Benefits of Printing Invitations on 5 x 7 Paper

There are a few upsides to printing your invitations on 5 x 7 paper. The most obvious one is that there’s no cutting! Just print your invitations at home, and you’re done! The other upside is that you don’t need any special envelopes. I personally use these white 5 x 7 invitation envelopes on Amazon.

No Borderless Printer? No problem!

However, if you don’t have the ability to print borderless prints for your invitations, that’s okay! You can still print invitations at home easily and beautifully. Not to mention, you’ll probably save money on your invitations! Why? Because you will use 8.5 x 11 paper to print two-to-a-page. Follow this blog about How to Print Borderless Invitations Without a Borderless Printer, and then continue reading below for the paper to use.

When printing invitations on 8.5 x 11 paper, I recommend two options. Firstly, printed invitations look great on this InkPress Media 8.5×11 paper. It can definitely be a little more pricey than other matte cardstock you’ve seen. But believe me, it’s worth it! If that paper is out of stock when printing your invitations, you’ll want to check out or compare this Epson 8.5×11 paper for printing your invitations.

Both kinds of paper that I am recommending have the same matte consistency of the 5 x 7 paper. They both print gorgeous and vibrant colors when printing invitations and other items.

Things To Know Before Printing Your Invitations or Other Prints

There are a few things to quickly note about this paper for printing invitations and other items you plan to print at home. First, this paper is not super thick. Therefore, if you’re looking for a heavier cardstock to print your invitations, make sure you head over to The Best Cardstock Paper for Invitations after you read through this blog. Then, make sure you read about the paper weight your printer can actually print over on The Best Printer for Heavy Cardstock Paper.

Next, I mentioned that this paper is “matte”. This means that it’s like presentation paper – NOT glossy like a regular photograph. This paper is also perfect for printing photos to frame in your home that you don’t want to have that glossy look. You might also be printing items for your party, like a welcome sign, food table sign, Happy Birthday Sign, and more. In that case, you might want to grab the 8 x 10 version of this paper. Just remember though, that will only work for people who have the option for borderless printing.

Additionally, the other thing to note about this paper for printing invitations is that most of it is one sided. Meaning that you can’t print vibrant prints on both sides of the paper. If this isn’t a big deal, then no worries. However, if you plan to print on both sides, make sure you get the paper that is the same on both sides. (From my experience, the 5 x 7 paper is double sided, however, the other sizes are not.)

The Best Paper to Print Invitations -Cutting your invitations

As mentioned above, if you don’t have borderless printing, you will have to cut your invitations down to size. Therefore, Below I have included a few cutters that I recommend for cutting your printed invitations at home.

These Fiskars cutters are great for those of you with small projects and/or a small office. They’re great for people who don’t have a dedicated craft room or office. Once the blade starts to get blunt, you can buy these replacement Fiskars blades on Amazon.

You may also want to consider a larger cutter if you plan to do this often and it’s more than just a one-time project. These cutters that I’ve included below are a great upgrade option if you have the budget and space. I have the Wescott Cutter that seems to do a great job.

Alternatively, you you might be printing invitations that aren’t 5 x 7! Maybe your printing invitations are shaped like a gumball machines or a jars of bugs, like those below?! If that’s the case, you could try cutting these invitations with scissors. But let’s be honest, that won’t look super precise. Therefore, head over to How to Make Invitations with Your Cricut.



Let’s Connect!

I can’t wait to hear about how beautiful your printed invitations from home turn out! Leave a comment or a picture below when you do!

Lastly, thank you so much for taking the time to read about how to print invitations at home! I hope this gives you some ideas about how to easily print beautiful prints and invitations at home! Tell me below what you thought! I love to help you celebrate life through party decorations and beyond. Above all, I’d love to connect with you. Reach out to me on Instagram and let’s chat, or continue celebrating your life with The Celebration Effect.

xoxo

Lindsay

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What do you print wedding invites on?

The Best Paper to Print Invitations at Home