Best Wedding Invitations For The Price (A Designer’s Review)


wedding invitations from minted

This post contains affiliate links and/or links to my own products. I never recommend anything I don’t love or wouldn’t use myself.

I’ve written extensively about wedding invitations over the last few weeks, reviewing the top companies from Zazzle to Minted and even some nontraditional companies like Moo and Walmart Photo. All to bring you this ultimate review of the best wedding invitations for the price.

For this post, I sampled and researched prices for 12 of the most popular wedding invitation companies and printers. Here are some basics you should know before you start looking for wedding invitations and what companies I found to have the best quality for the price.

Looking for a review of a particular company? Use our table of contents to jump straight to that review.

Table of Contents

What Do Wedding Invitations Cost?

To start, let’s get some basics out of the way like how much do wedding invitations cost?

According to The Knot’s annual survey, couples spend an average of $530 on wedding invitations. My research estimates put the average cost from an online printer to be $436, which is right on par with The Knot’s survey. $436 gets you 100 save the dates, 100 invitations, 200 forever stamps, and 100 wedding programs from an average cost printer.

At first glance, The Knot’s $530 number seems a lot higher than the average we found of $118 for 100 invitations in our other comparison posts. That is until you consider the cost of save the dates, postage, and any day of stationery like programs into the total cost.

So yes, you’re really looking at $400-500 for the bare minimum in wedding stationery. You can of course keep those costs down by going with a more affordable printer or DIYing it. You can read my full guide to the cheapest way to do wedding invitations here.

How Long Do Wedding Invitations Take To Come In?

And when should you order your invitations? The short answer is as soon as possible.

Wedding invitations take 2-3 weeks on average to come in after you’ve ordered them. This is for ready made designs printed on in-stock materials. For custom designed invitations, you should expect it to take a little longer at 4-6 weeks from choosing a stationery designer to receiving the final product.

This estimate is based on how long it takes for the wedding invitation companies I sampled to process and ship your order. Here’s a full breakdown of how long it will take for you to receive wedding invitations from each company:

Wedding Invitation CompanyTime to Receive Your Order
Minted9-14 business days
Walmart Photo6-7 business days (or pick up same day)
Zazzle7-14 business days
VistaPrint7-10 business days
Moo10 business days
Magnet Street7-10 business days
Shutterfly6-10 business days
Costco7-10 business days
Staples7-10 business days (or pick up same day)
Fedex Office5-7 business days (or pick up same day)
Canva7-17 business days (or pick up next day at FedEx)
Amazon10 business days

Now that you know how long it takes to order wedding invitations, you can check out our guide on when to send out wedding invitations here. And for destination weddings, I have a separate post for you.

How Fast Can I Get Wedding Invitations?

Invitations take a lot longer to design and print than you might expect. But there are a few shortcuts to get them faster.

The quickest you can get wedding invitations is within a few hours. You can speed up the wedding invitation process by ordering from a local photo center, such as Walmart or Staples, and pick them up the same day. You can also purchase a ready made template and fill out or print the details yourself within an hour or two.

If you need the invitations within two weeks, choose rush shipping options. This can cut your time from order to delivery by 5-7 days at most companies.

If you need the invitations within a week, use same day pick up at Walmart or Staples. This cuts both processing time and shipping. A lot of photo centers and local print shops are equipped to print invitations within a few hours of you ordering. And they have predesigned templates to make it easy.

If you need the invitations today, purchase a ready made template or send digital invitations. You can purchase a digital template and print it out yourself as fast as your little fingers can type. Or you can pick up a pre-printed template at your local Target or Michaels that simply needs to be filled in with neat handwriting or even can be printed on. Your final solution for last minute invites is to send digital ones through a company like Paperless Post.

The Best Quality Wedding Invitation – Minted

My pick for best overall quality is Minted. Their designs are unmatched since they rely on a community of talented artists for most of their designs. And the printing quality is superior to all of the ones I sampled. They have even nicer paper and printing options like gold foil or letterpress available at a higher cost.

minted wedding invitation sample kit

The average Minted invitation will set you back $2.34 per invitation and envelope, which makes it one of the more expensive invitation options. But I think it’s worth the price for a few reasons:

First, they offer a lot of value for the price like a free wedding website, and free envelope addressing for guest addresses. Second, the quality is top notch and already included in the price. If you were planning to upgrade on a lower-cost site, you’ll end up paying about the same.

Third, they offer a ton of matching accessories for your design. You can easily match your save the dates, invites, wedding website, programs and more to have a cohesive look and feel that fits your wedding theme.

Fourth, you can get some good discounts to bring down the price more in line with other companies and still get the superior quality of Minted! With the discounts they run, if you were planning on adding something like envelope addressing or belly bands, then you can put together a package that is a similar cost. I was able to get the invitation cost down to $1.72 per invitation if I chose a smaller sized design and applied a 20% discount from signing up for their email list. Minted More may help you save even more on shipping costs and discounts throughout the year if you’re a stationery junkie.

minted wedding invitation with custom illustration

Lastly, you get what you pay for with Minted. The designs are amazing, the printing and paper quality is wonderful. I really just can’t say enough good things about how their products turn out. I’ve used Minted personally for many years and have always been happy with the results.

I go into more detail on why I like Minted for wedding stationery in a separate review. Read the full review of Minted here.

The Best Bargain – Walmart Photo

The hands down, absolute cheapest option for your wedding invitations is Walmart. They have designed templates for as low as $0.46 per invitation and envelope set. That is $.72 cheaper than the average invitation, which could save you $72 on your wedding invitations alone.

And I ordered one to test the quality. I was happily surprised with how it turned it out. The quality of the printing was excellent. But be warned if you choose an option printed on glossy photo paper, it’s not going to be as nice as an invitation on premium cotton card stock. It can read more Christmas card than wedding invitation if it’s not done right.

I don’t think most people would care about this enough to notice but if you’re thinking of using a glossy paper option, you should use a real photo within the design for best results. It will look funny if you print a white background with greenery on glossy paper like this. But if you use a photo from your engagement shoot (or find a friend with a decent camera), the results are quite nice.

The con of course is the lack of matching options and design options. There were plenty of options for wedding designs in popular themes but if you’re looking for something unique or artistic, you may not find it here. And the options for adding on day of stationery and decor items are limited.

Fastest Shipping – Walmart Photo

The other benefit to Walmart Photo is how fast you can get wedding invitations from them. This is a huge bonus if you’re in a rush to get invitations out. I covered above their option for same day printing. You can literally order invitations and pick them up in-store an hour later. It’s the fastest option available for sure.

You can also have them delivered to you in about a week which is also faster than average.

Most people have a Walmart close enough to their house to make them a great option for fast printing. If you’re not near a Walmart, FedEx and Staples offer similar options to pick up same day and don’t cost a whole lot more.

The Best for Variety of Designs and Products – Zazzle

I like Zazzle for couples who want a ton of different products at a reasonable price. They have 1,600+ products to print your designs on. So you can order everything from the traditional save the dates, invitations and day of stationery to large signs, wine labels, and custom mason jars. Looking for gifts for your wedding party? They have those too.

wedding invitation from zazzle

And the quality of Zazzle products was good enough to justify their price. At $1.32 per invitation and envelope set, they come in slightly higher than the average of $1.18 per set from our list of the 12 most popular companies. That price is still pretty affordable and the results are better than the closest competitor, VistaPrint.

The con of Zazzle is that they are a marketplace for independent designers so not all designs are available for every product. You can technically apply ANY design to ANY product but it might not be formatted for that specific product. You can reach out to a designer through Zazzle for help if you need it to customize a particular product.

You can read my full review of Zazzle here.

The Most Unique – Etsy

For custom invitations featuring an illustration of your venue, a couples’ portrait, your dog, and more unique ideas, your best bet is Etsy. A professional stationery designer or even the custom illustration option through Minted will set you back a few hundred dollars on just the design (Minted’s custom design work starts at $650). You’ll then still need to pay for printing, shipping and any extras. At Etsy, you can find artists to create a custom design or illustration for around $100. Then you can print it at an online printing company or at your local Staples to save on printing costs.

Wedding invitation with customizable dog monogram – available from Loud Bride on Etsy

You can also find even more affordable options for templates on Etsy that are easy to customize and come in the most untraditional designs for every hobby and passion. Like this one (above) I designed that lets you put your furry friend into your wedding monogram. So cute!

If you purchased a template on Etsy and wondering where to get it printed, you can read the full guide to where to print invitations from Etsy here.

Not Worth It – VistaPrint

I don’t recommend VistaPrint for wedding invitations. While they have a reputation for being affordable, they’re actually above average in terms of cost for invitations. My comparison found that on average VistaPrint costs $1.42 per invitation and envelope set. That’s $0.24 per invitation – or $24 extra for 100 invitations. And the quality does not justify the higher price. Out of the samples I’ve received, their samples were the lowest quality. Ink smudged onto the corresponding envelope, items were mis-folded or wrinkled. And previous orders I’ve made from them, turned out the same.

wedding invitations from VistaPrint

There are better companies for your money. If you’re curious why else I don’t recommend them, you can read my full review of VistaPrint here.

Final Recommendations

And that’s the round-up of my preferred wedding invitation companies. While my favorite is Minted for quality, Zazzle for variety, and Etsy for uniqueness, you can find some other amazing designs at affordable prices at other companies. Check out our guide to the cheapest wedding invitations for a more thorough comparison on prices. Or if you want to try to DIY your invitations, read this article first to get started. Then head over here to learn how to jazz them up to make them look more expensive.

Jaime

Jaime is the owner of Loud Bride and Coast Designs LLC. She got married in 2017 in Geneseo, NY and designed her own wedding invitations and programs for the occasion. Now, she designs bespoke wedding stationery and affordable templates for other couples. She lives in New York city with her husband and two children.

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