Be Our Guest ~ Our DIY Wedding Invites

Unless you’re in the lucky position of having an unlimited budget, you may well be finding that planning a wedding involves spending money on the areas that are important to you and compromising on the rest. This is something that our real Dubai bride Maja Lunsjo discovered when it came to creating her wedding invites.

In her latest month, Maja explains why she opted to create her own DIY wedding invites and tells us how she went about bringing her vision to life. Enjoy!

“Fancy going out for some sushi for lunch?”

“Eh, oh no thanks, I would have loved to but I brought my own lunch today”.

It was a complete lie. I had forgotten my store-bought tomato soup in the fridge at home but somehow I didn’t want to admit to my colleague that I was skipping lunches in favour of spending my money on confetti and pre-wedding facials.

Let’s face it, weddings aren’t cheap. Especially in Dubai! It doesn’t matter how much you plan your budget or how much you swear you are going to stick to your priority list. When it comes down to it, Dubai brides want the best…of everything. Whether it’s finding out that ‘the dress’ is out of your budget, or finding an amazing band in a local restaurant that you know you can’t afford, having the discipline to stick to your plan and not bankrupt yourself over a wedding can be extremely difficult. It is easy to forget that ‘the best’ doesn’t always mean ‘the most expensive’.

Our invitations were a perfect example of this dilemma. We already knew that we wanted a passport themed invitation set to go with our destination wedding. Armed with pictures from Pinterest and a colour scheme, we set out to meet with a range of invitation makers, expecting to have our dream invitations made up in no time. What we didn’t expect was a 5,000 AED quote and a four-week delivery timeline! Needless to say, we quickly left the meeting and headed home feeling a little deflated but ready to brainstorm alternatives.

We both felt that the invitations were an extremely important part of the wedding. It helps set the tone of the event and it can be a really nice keepsake for the guests if done right. That being said, this item was not high enough on our priority list for us to justify doubling our budget. So, we decided to put our DIY skills to the test.

Making our own invitations proved to be one of the best decisions we could have made for the wedding. We were able to get the design exactly how we wanted it (with some help from our design-savvy groomsman Richard), got a really personal invitation set, and made a huge cost saving. Not to mention, who knew spending evenings taping ribbons to envelopes could be so much fun?

Our final invitations set consists of a passport invitation, a boarding pass RSVP slip, a boarding pass holder with silk ribbon and our initials as a sticker. We put it all in an airmail envelope for a travel touch. All elements were designed in Inkscape, a free software that was relatively easy to use, and we had them printed at Desco in Dubai. The envelopes and boarding pass holders were bought at a post office supplier which also proved way cheaper than having them made. Finally, my favorite bit is the personalised travel stamp we bought on eBay.

All in all, our invitations cost 1,500 AED and we could not be happier with them!

xX Maja Xx

Don’t forget to log on next month to see Maja’s latest bridal diary post!