It’s always helpful to be able to save some money here and there, especially in today’s economic climate. Why not do so by printing your own invitations to your wedding or social event? Printing at home is a cost-effective and completely viable alternative to sending your invitations away to a professional printer. I asked our Vice President, Barry Levine, to weigh in with his thoughts on the subject. Barry has many years of experience working in the wedding industry with professional printers as well as with individuals doing their own printing.
What are some of the benefits of printing your own invitations at home?
Barry: “Number one, you have the freedom of personal creativity — you’re basically doing it at your own leisure. You’re getting others involved: family members, friends, relatives. The bottom line is that it is also a cost-savings measure in my mind. Having been in the wedding invitation industry for so many years, I’ve had the opportunity to see what printed invitations from some of the major social thermographers are all about — also having worked for a social thermographer for many years — and I can say from firsthand experience that the cost of ordering printed invitations from a company such as these vs. taking on the task of printing your own invitations on blank stock [is cheaper]. The cost to the individual of printing their own invitations is really their time and whatever consumables they might use on their own printers that they’re using at home.”
Is home printing something anyone is capable of? Do you need any special equipment or training?
Barry: “Do I think that it’s an easy task? I feel quite strongly about that [that it is]. I think that if we didn’t, we probably wouldn’t be in this business. I’ve consulted with many people on the phone, on how to go about doing their home printing, and, as far as special needed equipment — there really is not any. Having a computer and a printer, and the ability to work with an application — Microsoft Word seems to be one of the most common ones used — and if someone is versed in using Microsoft Word, they should be very capable of setting up a custom sized document for home printing.
One of the nice things about LCI is that not only are we here to sell a product for people to print on their own, but we’re here to assist them in the long run on how to go about doing it. Now, we may do that in the form of resource content that we put on our website such as how-to videos, Microsoft Word templates, sample invitation working, etc. Additionally, our in house designers have experience creating custom invitation ensembles and printing on those invitations. They are here to help those who call and are interested in doing it on their own.”
Do you have any suggestions for someone who is considering printing their own invitations at home?
Barry: “Take your time in laying out the invitation, try to make good choices of type styles to be used, type sizes — oftentimes it’s nice to coordinate the use of two different type styles in an invitation. Make sure that if you are using multiple type styles that they’re complimentary to each other. And oftentimes it’s a good suggestion to have other people proofread your work — have them take a look at it, ask them for their comments on design, have them check for spelling and punctuation. I’ve found that if I look at something too long, that I’m not always the best person to proofread my own work, so it’s a good common practice to have others look at your work. And finally, before the actual printing takes place, I typically will suggest to people to try to cut stock — waste stock or just extra stock that you might have on hand — to the size of the invitation, and use that for setup purposes. Try not to use your actual invitation stock or your envelopes that you’ve spent some good money on, use setup stock that you don’t care about. Make sure that all of your formatting comes out printed the way you anticipate it to. And then when you’re finally happy with the way the layout is, and how it’s printed, and the color of ink choice, then you’re ready to use your final stock.”
Lastly, are there any common concerns that customers bring to you in the home printing process?
Barry: “Some of the common concerns that customers might have when printing their own invitations — I should say one of the most major concerns — is: will the cards print on their printers? That particular concern is often a tough question for us to answer, because we can only give firsthand knowledge based on the experience that we’ve had with various printers. We’ve tried to test a few [printers] in the market, but it does not always encompass all printers. What we will do, on our website, is indicate whether a particular stock or envelope is suitable for either laser printing or inkjet printing, or neither in some cases. In most cases it will either be suitable for one and/or the other. However, there are occasional stocks that are so heavy that we won’t recommend printing on them for home printing. They might be designed or more geared toward offest presses or letterpress, and we will indicate that with those particular papers. A lot of times people might be choosing stocks even though they can’t print them on their own home printers for complimentary papers, for layers that they’re going to use underneath a printed invitation. So we don’t always know the purpose of why someone is purchasing a particular stock, but if we can help them along the way by giving them as much information as possible as relates to it’s printability, then in the long run, it’s more information for the customer and better reputation for LCI Paper.”
With the benefits of home printing, you can take full credit for the beautiful invitations you make yourself. So save yourself some money and the stress of professional printing, and print your own invitations at home!
Will Collins
willc@lcipaper.com
