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Custom Wedding Printables, DIY, DIY Wedding Invitations, Do it yourself, e.m.papers, Free Wedding printable stationery, Invitations, Printables, Stationery, Wedding invitation, Wedding Printables, Wedding Stationary, Wedding stationery
Over the years i’ve collected images of wedding stationery that I loved at that point in time, and a lot of the stationery was centred around a beach and tropical theme, totally different to my actual wedding plans. It’s interesting to look back on your wedding dreams and see how they’ve evolved to become what they are today. Initially I found traditional printed stationery websites through wedding websites and bridal magazines but I found the costs of the custom printed stationery to be more than I wanted to pay…for pretty paper, for one day, I know what you’re thinking, but it’s my wedding day? I’m trying to keep a budget!
I first discovered stationery “printables” last November when I purchased a full invitation suite at a very sweet 50% off sale from Eleanor at e.m.papers. I purchased her Floral suite and while it’s simple and pretty, it didn’t quite meet my expectations. I didn’t like the default colour – how it came out on my printer, and I found having to type into the set spaces for the wording a little restrictive. My wedding plans subsequently changed and so did my style and theming, so I won’t be using that set but I learnt so much from the purchase that it was actually money well spent and I can easily use it to help decorate a dinner party in the future. What I did learn was that the colours on screen don’t look like what’s printed, just similar and I learnt that I really needed to obtain a sample – preferably a PDF over an image, and a good quality one to make sure i’m happy before I spend any money. The experience of my first printables purchase certainly didn’t deter me from investigating other printables, I just had a better understanding of my needs in relation to printables and that I needed customisation.
Eleanor’s designs at e.m.papers have continued to evolve since I first visited her website and she offers some unique designs and a customisation service. I really enjoyed checking out the results from her 31 Invitations in 31 days challenge which has been a success for her with some of the favourite designs now in her online shop.
Eleanor provides how-to videos and step by step guides for the printable process and includes some free fonts for some sets which is very helpful. The prices are very reasonable for what you receive and its an excellent option for the bride on a budget.
Eleanor also generously offers a complete free printable wedding set in black and white which would be gorgeous printed on a rustic brown recycled paper stock. This set printed really well (black and white) on my home printer – it’s only designed for that, and encouraged me to purchase the Floral set.
Black & White Printable Wedding Set - Bike
Eleanor also has monthly giveaways, so check out her blog or they feature on her Facebook page.
Even though my first printables encounter wasn’t quite what I expected, it was still positive and the end result is now i’m using custom printables for my wedding stationery.
Read about my printables stationery designed by Citrus Press Co here.
Related articles
- Etsy Printables Love: Citrus Press Co (brideinwhite.wordpress.com)
Hi Rebecca,
Thanks so much for this post and for your thoughtful, fair and thorough analysis of your experience with pritnables and with e.m.papers. I appreciate that it can be tricky trying to match the color from the screen to the printer, as each one is different.
As you mentioned, I am evolving e.m.papers and trying to be responsive to customers request. Floral was one of my earliest designs, none of the other e.m.papers templates use the small individual text field format any longer. Additionally, I have added a color sheet which customers can download and print to make sure the colors not only match their expectations, but look the same (or as close as possible) on their printer.
Hope that helps, and thanks again for your fair and kind words!
Eleanor
I’m so pleased to hear that you’ve evolved the field formats, this will make the templates so much easier to personalise. I think having a colour sheet for test printing will be a huge help.
I know you’re really trying hard to meet the needs of your customers and I love your fresh designs which is why i’m so happy to share your wonderful business on my blog.
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