DIY Invitations for Your Winter Wedding

As anyone who has watched one of the innumerable cable shows about them knows, weddings are an increasingly expensive affair. Because not every couple can afford to spend an inordinate amount of money on a grand affair, some prefer to cut corners and make or design some elements at home. This is a guide to making your own DIY winter wedding invitations.

First, if you really want to go for an inexpensive wedding invitation, head to email. An emailed wedding invitation doesn't necessarily have to mean a simple white background with black texts. Thanks to html formatting and the ability to insert images, your emailed invitations will not only be high tech and easy to manage, but classy as well. You and your spouse to be can set up an email account solely for wedding invites. That way, when the RSVPs come back to you, there's no worry about them getting damaged or misplaced -they're stored right there in your inbox!

If you don't like the idea of emailed wedding invitations, never fear -you can still have gorgeous do it yourself handmade invitations that are even better than store bought ones! All you need is a good word processing program like Microsoft Word to get started. If your computer doesn't have it, chances are the computers at your local library will. The great thing about Microsoft Word is that it offers invitation templates so that if you're not used to designing invitations you can just put in your information and you're done. You can play around with different invitation types to find the one you most like or, after you've learned more about the program, design something new from scratch.

With Microsoft Word or other similar programs, there are tons of options, including font, font size, colors, and images. For instance, for a winter wedding you can insert a background of a snow fall or horse and sleigh, with a Christmas red as or crimson as your font color. Other colors you could incorporate include gold, silver, hunter green, or a deep blue.

After you've formalized the look of your invitations it's time to print. Stay away from regular typing paper, as it is quite thin and will look cheap. Instead, head to your stationary store and pick up a thicker paper or even card stock for a few dollars more than a pack of regular computer paper. Places like Office Max or Office Depot offer many different choices, including colored paper. They also offer several decorative envelope options or you can buy a box of large, plain envelopes and design a specific look for them as well.

Invitations bought from a printer can cost anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on the specifications, but when you make them at home not only are you making them more personal, you're spending a fraction of the price!