You’ve Got (Custom Invitations in the) Mail!

When my husband and I got married, back in the dark ages of the 1990s, custom invitations were prohibitively expensive. We’re both pretty creative and share a weird sense of humor and what we wanted — a four-part custom invitation “experience” created with translucent paper and card stock — was definitely out of our price range. So we did what any resourceful and relatively poor twenty-something engaged couple would do: We went to my husband’s work after hours and “borrowed” their industrial printers.

When you opened the envelope, the first card you saw was a cropped photograph of couple dancing — he in dark pants and she with a full white skirt that’s fluid with motion — with the word “wedding” printed underneath. Through the vellum, you could read our names, the date and time, and the location. But when you flipped over that card, the next revealed two monkeys above that information. 

Funny, right?

You kind of had to be there but honestly, the joke was on us. Because if you calculated all the time we spent printing and photocopying our custom invitations, manually cropping with the gigantic guillotine that I was terrified would cut my fingers off, and gluing the images onto the cards so that they were perfectly aligned (impossible), our wedding invitations probably cost six months’ worth of the minimum wages we were making at the time.

My, how things have changed. Spring is the season for announcements — from graduation to wedding to baby — and I recently discovered an online option that changes the entire custom invitation and card-making game. It’s ridiculously more affordable and totally easy-peasy — which is perfect, because I am way too old to “borrow” a printer. Want to learn more — and score a 15% off discount? 

Great! Basic Invite, which sponsored this post, is a one-stop shop for printed custom invitations and cards that you design yourself. It’s perfect for everything from baby announcements to business cards to weddings and — of course— graduation announcements, medical school graduation invitations, law school graduation announcements, and more. Basic Invite offers endless design choices (or upload your own), hundreds of colors, and instant previews online. Here are two of my favorites, from their library:

My favorite part? Unlike other online stationery resources, Basic Invite lets you order a printed sample of your custom invitation or card design before you place your order — so you can check out paper quality and printing, and make sure everything lines up!

Yes, I know it is more environmentally friendly to email an invitation, but there is something so lovely about designing and sending — and also receiving — a printed card. Luckily Basic Invite’s signature matte and smooth-coated paper are all FSC certified and recyclable. (Although I’m obviously not a fan of and would recommend staying away from the translucent plastic options.) Also, they will print addresses on your envelopes at no extra cost, and make getting them easy through a capture service that can be shared with friends and family on social media.

Oh, right, the discount: Get 15% off on your next order with coupon code 15FF51. Cheers!