Wedding Invitations in Singapore – 3 Money-Saving Hacks for Wedding Cards

Just when you’re eating cai png for the 5th day straight and think you couldn’t possibly spend any more money on your upcoming wedding… you suddenly remember that you still haven’t sorted out your wedding invitations. Crap!

Here’s the lowdown on how wedding invitations are priced in Singapore and 3 ways you can save on those costs, because every little bit counts. (Think of it this way: every $5 saved on wedding invites can get you an extra cup of coffee on your Parisian honeymoon.)

A post shared by Gifts of Grace Design (@giftsofgracedesign) on May 14, 2018 at 5:53am PDT

Wait a minute, doesn’t the hotel wedding banquet come with invitations?

If you’ve booked a wedding banquet at a hotel, they usually offer to do the wedding invitations too. These are often conveniently bundled into the banquet package to save you the hassle. Naturally, this is the easiest way to settle your wedding cards.

However, you won’t have that much control over (a) the design and (b) the price.

Design-wise, you’re pretty much limited to whatever designs they have. While it’s probably not going to turn out horrible (like with your misspelled names typed out in size 48 Comic Sans), it’s also going to look very… templated. If you’re super fussy about aesthetics, this will probably irritate you.

You’d think that printing rates are standard, but in fact the price depends not just on the hotel’s printing vendor, but the hotel itself too. Certain printing stores are known to work with several hotels, but have different agreed rates with each one.

Also, be aware of hidden costs. Most wedding banquet packages will include wedding invitations for up to 60% to 70% of confirmed attendees only – you will have to top up for the rest.

Some hotels also provide a buffer of 10% of cards in case of mistakes or flaws in printing. But be sure to ask to confirm this – some will impose an extra charge for it. And while envelopes usually come free, printing of inserts are typically excluded.

But who chooses their banquet venue solely for the cheapest wedding invitation printing rates, right?

Like most couples, you’re probably going to pick your preferred hotel and then check out their printing rates. If the rates are too pricey for your liking, here are 3 ways you can save money on them:

Wedding invitation hack #1: Design your own wedding invites

You can choose to pick one of those atas wedding invitation designers with beautiful Instagram portfolios (like @creativekad and @giftsofgracedesign), or you can simply design your own wedding cards – there are plenty of free (and cheap) software and apps that’ll come in handy.

A popular online tool is Canva, which allows you to create all kinds of artwork online. It’s completely free, and even suitable for those with not a creative bone in their body. There are free wedding invitation templates that are actually chio.

If you have your own software (like Photoshop or Illustrator), you can search for free vectors and icons to use on Free Pik.

Some people even rip wedding card designs off Google images – you are technically stealing, even though it’s not for commercial use – but be careful to check the photo quality. If it’s not high-resolution enough, it may be pixelated and fuzzy when printed.

Wedding invitation hack #2: Opt for e-invites to save on printing costs

A post shared by [email protected] (@creativekad) on Jun 26, 2018 at 5:56am PDT

Since your entire life takes place on your phone anyway, why not just do a digital invitation? For your millennial circle of friends, just WhatsApp them the e-invite and create a Facebook group for them to RSVP.

If anyone makes a bitchy remark, you can always diss them for not being environmentally-friendly or even invoke the old chestnut about Singapore being a “Smart Nation”.

I personally prefer e-invites to hard copy ones. Sure, actual wedding cards are nice to hold, but I’m also super likely to lose it. I absolutely hate having to turn my room upside down to find the physical invitation – especially when I’m already half-blind and running late from a false eyelashes-related incident.

While you probably won’t be able to avoid physical invitations for the older folks, at least you cut most of your costs as the number of cards you have to print is dramatically reduced.

Wedding invitation hack #3: Scout for an affordable printing vendor

If you must have your wedding invitations in hardcopy, then you might want to go jalan jalan at Sunshine Plaza and Peace Centre to find a cheap printing shop.

Forget about doing this online, because most of these print shops are old school and don’t publish their rates online. So when you want to compare rates, you’ll have to call them up or email your design over to ask for quotations.

The exact cost to print your invitations depend on several things: the design, size, paper and type of printing. In general, $0.60 to $1 (per card, 1-sided) is considered quite affordable. Some popular printing shops known for reasonable rates include VistaPrint and Gogo Print.

You can also consider driving across the causeway to have your wedding invitations printed in Johor Bahru. The most popular print shop is T&T Instant Print Services at City Square.It is in JB ah – don’t confuse it with the City Square in Singapore (or City Plaza, for that matter).

Finally, when all else fails, there’s always Taobao. Many sellers have beautiful designs and printing can be as cheap as $0.30 per wedding invitation.

But your Chinese needs to be quite tok gong in order to communicate with the seller, especially since there’s some level of customisation here. Let’s just say that… had I known that I would need to liaise with mainland Chinese online sellers as an adult, I would definitely have paid more attention during Chinese class in school.

How much did you spend on your wedding invitations and where did you print it? Share your tips with us in the comments below!