Nothing sets the stage for your wedding day aesthetic like the save-the-dates and invitations sent to invite your guests to your wedding. “How much do letterpress wedding invitations cost?” is one of the most common questions I hear, and one I’ll gladly answer. Let’s dive in.
What Goes Into Pricing
Many factors contribute to the cost of creating your dream letterpress wedding invitations. Here’s what I consider when pricing every Birdsong Bespoke design.
Design Fee
Design is the “special sauce” behind Birdsong Bespoke; my artistry is the reason why you hire me over another wedding stationer, and is difficult to quantify. My design fee covers a lifetime of continual artistic development to master my craft, as well as my inherent talent and taste. It also includes continual space in my brain. I often find inspiration in unsuspecting places, and am always thinking of my design projects. Your wedding vision is ruminating during every workout, vacation, shower, and sleep cycle. The design fee covers this precious space in my heart and soul for the weeks, months, or years that we work together.
Essentially, my design fee covers the cost to process all of the information you share with me about your life and wedding and translate that into elegant letterpress stationery that’s uniquely yours.
Materials
Birdsong Bespoke’s invitation suites can be as elegant as a single invitation card and an outer envelope, or as luxurious as a five-piece invitation suite including a detail card, RSVP card, monogrammed tags, vellum wraps, wax seals,vintage stamps, and so much more. The more complex the design, and the more people you invite to your wedding, the higher your material costs will be.
Labor
Labor costs include the work it takes to print your letterpress wedding invitations, such as preparing my letterpress machine for print, printing the materials, assembling the final suite, finishing the suite with any embellishments, packaging the suites, and shipping or mailing them.
Overhead
My overhead costs include everything needed to run my home office like my computer, software, lighting, work tables, and sketchbooks (so many sketchbooks); my letterpress machine Birdie and other equipment she requires; marketing costs; legal fees; accounting fees; and costs to continue my education.
Project Management
My project management costs include the time it takes to send proposals and invoices, schedule meetings, organize files, and other administrative tasks.
Tax
Uncle Sam gets a cut of every design I produce.
Profit
Profit is essential for any healthy, thriving business. I price my work for profit so that I can invest back into making better work for my clients, including better tools, continuing my education, sharing my work with the world, and experimenting with new techniques to elevate what I can offer
The Difference Between Custom and Semi-Custom Collections
If you’re looking for the sophistication of letterpress wedding invitations without the typical timeline and costs, my semi-custom Birdsong Collections are an excellent choice.
There are several differences between custom and semi-custom stationery from Birdsong Bespoke. They all feature beautifully unique designs created by me and luxe letterpress printing, but only the custom projects are designed from scratch. The semi-custom letterpress invitations have a lower cost because they are already designed, so I know exactly how long production takes, what the hard costs are, and roughly how much design and administrative time is required, as customizations are limited.
Wedding Stationery Cost at Birdsong Bespoke
In my experience as a professional wedding invitation designer, there are five “tiers” of spending on wedding stationery. These ranges cover your entire collection of wedding stationery including save-the-dates, invitation suites, and day-of stationery:
- Basic: $25 or less per guest
- Elevated: $25 – $50 per guest
- Premium: $50 – $150 per guest
- Luxury: $150 – $350 per guest
- Ultra Luxury: $350+ per guest
Birdsong Bespoke falls into the “elevated” and “premium” categories, depending on whether you select a semi-custom collection or work with me for custom letterpress wedding stationery, the intricacy of design, and selection of speciality materials.
Semi-custom collections range from $9 to $45 per invitation suite, depending on the design and quantity. (Please note that this pricing isn’t equivalent to “per guest” because it doesn’t include save-the-dates or day-of stationery.) Custom letterpress invitations start between $30 – $45 per guest, including save-the-dates, invitations, and day-of stationery.
If you’d like more details on how much the wedding stationery you’re envisioning costs, I encourage you to contact me and share your plans in detail so I can provide a more thorough, custom quote.
