The holidays are a time when every opportunity to get together with family and friends is important! If you find yourself throwing a holiday event this year, you’ll want to make sure everyone who receives an invitation feels special. Your event invitation is the first thing your guests get an impression of, so you have the chance to make a real statement with a single sheet of cardstock! Throwing events during the holidays can get expensive. Once you count up the cost of the venue, food costs, and decorations, the last thing you want to worry about is having to pay a costly printing bill for some invites. Don’t worry, no need to skimp on the awesome holiday summons! Printing invitations either at home or in the office for your Las Vegas holiday event can save you major money!
Why printing invitations at home can save you major money
On average, professional event invitations cost between $2 and $15 each. This is a huge range, and entirely dependent on what you’re looking for – but printing at home saves money on almost every front. Corporate events can have hundreds or even thousands of people invited. Making the cost of invites a pretty hefty one. Using office equipment and custom designs lowers this cost and frees up the budget for other areas. Small events, such as a family get-together, can still have a personal touch with a beautifully printed invitation. The costs you would save by utilizing or even upgrading your home printer to handle invitation printing would outweigh having a professional print them off for you. By doing it yourself, you can even customize your invites with personalized names or details; this sweet touch leaves a lasting impression with guests for no added money.
Designing printed invitations can be done with either templates or software
Gone are the days when you needed to have the fanciest design software to make a pretty piece of cardstock. With the World Wide Web at your fingertips, you can download ready-made templates that work on nearly any computer. This makes designing invitations a snap for at-home event planners, as it’s as simple as downloading a template and swapping out some details. If you did want to take it a step further, design software such as InDesign or Photoshop can help you build invites from the ground up. While it does require some design skills, using software instead of a template can create an ultra-personal invitation. This makes it ideal for holiday events such as themed weddings or corporate celebrations. The only downside to using design software (besides needing to purchase it!) is needed to make sure you export your design correctly for your printing equipment. Not all printers are made equal, so you’ll need to double-check your work before hitting ‘print’.
Almost Post Office-ready: exporting your printed invitation
Now that you’ve got the design all locked in, all that’s left to do is export your finished invitation to optimized print settings. Print settings should be customized to your printer; feel free to call your printing supply company to see what your machine can handle. As a rule of thumb, office printers can handle a higher output and are more accustomed to running large quantities of paper. Home printers may offer a nicer quality print but take longer due to not being able to accommodate multiple sheets of cardstock. Regardless of what equipment you have, you’ll want to be printing a high resolution (300 DPI, or dots per inch) PDF. This will help the image come out clearly. The paper you choose for your printed invitation will ideally be a thick cardstock. 85-pound stock is what most printers can comfortably handle, so if you have concerns about your equipment handling anything thicker you can always double up by manually gluing two sheets together. This could even create a nice border, depending on what style you’re looking for! No matter what, stock up on plenty of ink – especially if you have a highly colored invitation! For any assistance during your print projects, contact Vegas Ink & Toner.
