If you’ve ever received a wedding invitation in the mail, you’ve likely seen photo stamps. Photo stamps are stamps with a picture of the happy couple and they’re all the rage these days. Now, you might think to yourself how photo stamps are probably really expensive and how you’re not really looking for that but before you dismiss it, Stamps.com has a really good offer on the table that will save you on postage.
When you sign up, Stamps.com will give you $25 in postage, a free scale, and $5 worth of supplies. The free $25 in stamps will send 64 letters (or 32 invitations and reply envelopes).
Now, onto the PhotoStamps. All you need to do in order to print up PhotoStamps is to upload images to the Stamps.com website and place your order. Unfortunately, the stamps are far more expensive than their actual worth. A single sheet costs $17.99 and has only $7.80, a markup of $10.19!
So, if you’re really thinking about getting PhotoStamps, you might as well get $25 off. There are other options, however, that may be worth investigating.
You can get as extravagant or as simple as you want when it comes to invitations (just remember that it accounts for a minor part of your wedding budget, bigger dollars can be saved elsewhere but every little bit helps) and when it comes to printing it, engraving is the most expensive option. A cheaper alternative is to print the invitations yourself and with where printing technology is, and the quality of the paper you can buy from a stationary store, you can print very nice invitations from home and save yourself a few dollars.
It’s sometimes difficult to invite a friend and ask them not to bring a guest (that is to send an invitation to your friend and not to ‘your friend and a guest’) because one usually thinks that an invitation, by default, is for you and a guest (a date, if you will). The problem with that is if everyone you invited brought a guest, the cost of holding the wedding would increase tremendously.
To be entirely honest, I think every guest would understand if you merely extended an invitation to him or her and not to an accompanying guest (we can all understand how much a wedding costs). Now, if your friend is married or has a serious boyfriend or girlfriend that you know, if might be difficult to pull this off and its recommend that you invite them both. It’s not worth the grief of inviting one and not the other. However, if the financials really are that tight, then just invite one as they will likely understand (if they are your friend, which they should be if you’re going to invite them!).
Simply send an invitation for your friend and then follow it up with an email after you’re certain they’ve received it. Explain that you are looking to keep the costs of the wedding manageable and that you mean no disrespect but you only invited the friend and not a guest. If you are good enough friends with them to invite them to your wedding, they will likely agree. Don’t be afraid to broach the subject!
Instead of including a reply card or second envelope with your invitation, consider asking all (or at some) of your guests to RSVP online or via the telephone. This will save you a little money in terms of postage, reply cards, and envelopes; but it also reduces paper waste and clutter on your end. You will have tons of papers from various places that you don’t really need reply cards to help you become more confused. When you get the cards you will likely enter them into an Excel spreadsheet and then discard the cards, so skip the cards entirely!
Most folks usually have access to a computer and can shoot off an email (or if you are computer savvy you can setup a form online that they can access). If they don’t have access to a computer, not entirely uncommon, then a telephone call is possible too. If you don’t want to force your guests to call you, then you can always just add a reply card to a smaller subset of your guests that you think won’t have easy computer access.
You won’t save a ton of money on this, probably less than $50, but every little bit counts!