How much would you pay for this invite?

Nelski

Might have been an idea to get a budget first. If she is spending 50k on her wedding then I doubt she will balk at a few quid for the invites but if its a budget do with costs watched then Im sorry but I would say you will be on loser.

Toothfairy4

I'm with the others who can't understand how these are costing £1.60 each to make? Materials could have been bought much cheaper than that online, to be honest I think £3.50 each is REALLY excessive!

Curious_George_2

who knows, but somebody asked on her other thread and got a load of attitude about not being a crafter so couldnt possibly understand...
a lot of "go on then, try it...id like to see you do it" etc, personally i wouldnt bother, i dont like the design or the colour scheme but regardless of that i bet i could get them under £1.60 each and if i couldnt then they just wouldnt be profitable,
she also said they take half an hour each!!!

i know some poeple pay a lot for handmade invites but in this day and age most people just want a bargain, they must look expensive but actually be as cheap as possible,
The OP asked on this board, didnt like our opinion and then complained to the readers of the other thread that someone had said 80p per invite, obviously the crafters want a fair price for the work involved but we are the punters if you like, we are all here because we are planning our weddings, we are the ones who have done our research on stationary lately and if the majority of us think the price is excessive for something that hasnt appealled to many of us then that probably shouldnt be ignored if you wanted to go into business selling this kind of thing.

Toothfairy4

I looked at making my own with card from PDA card and craft and embellishments off ebay, if i had done it it would have come in at about 40p each max, proper high quality card etc....

I think if the OP was going to ask for opinions, as someone else says, we may not be crafters but we can only go by the standard we think they are and the price we would happily pay.

MrsDrink

Just incase the OP is still reading.
I based my 80p-£1 price on the fact that I have made my own invites and thank you cards, which look far more substantial and weighty, using more materials, for £1.58 each. I made each one, one a time, I didn't cut any corners by say using a guillotine/paper cutter to cut more than one sheet at a time, but I did get a production line going - I cut all the card first, then glued them, them scored them, etc. This price includes all expenses incurred by doing them myself - buying a cutting board, my craft knife, my spare blades, glue, thick 270gsm red card, thinner 160gsm white card, ribbon, envelopes, stamps, and writable CD-Roms (which I'm sending out with my thank you cards). It didn't include the cost of my ink because I just used my cartridges I'd already got. I managed to make 25 of the invites in around 4-5 hrs,roughly 1 every 10 minutes. This involved cutting the red and white card to size, gluing them together, scoring the gatefold, checking they folded neatly and completely, printing the insert, cutting the insert, gluing the insert, cutting the ribbon, tying the ribbon around.
I feel that if I, a non-professional-albeit-quite-crafty person, can make a card that in my opinion looks and feels as good as these do, for just under £1.60 then I certainly wouldn't pay more than £1 for your invite.
Incase you are interested this is my invite:


Taken from your other thread:

lorriellah wrote: »

I am feeling a bit happier about charging her what I wouldn't be prepared to pay!

This says it all for me.

Curious_George_2

Mrs Drink I think your invites are fantastic, and the fact they look so professional when you have done them at home is even better,
but... if you were previously a crafter as the OP is, you might have had so much of that matrial at home already... you said yourself you didnt count the price of the ink as you already had it, well if i were to have made your invites i probably wouldnt have had to buy the card, the glue or the envelopes...as i have a huge selection of stuff like that so could have made them even cheaper

and i think thats the point OP is missing, if you walk into the first specialist shop you come across and buy all the materials needed as you have none at home then yes, per invite stuff can get really expensive, but as a "crafter" she should have had the majority of the stuff reasonably priced and sourced already and that i imagine is why some of the people on this thread cant get thier heads past the £1 mark.

and, of course its all down to personal opinion and taste, but my invites were free from vistaprint, they are in my colour scheme and many people hae remarked how nice they are..... but heres the important part, my guests are just as invited as a guest who recieved a handmade invite that cost £10 each to make, only im going to spend the money saved on something that people actually remember... like better food, or decent entertainment.

Idiophreak

Curious_George wrote: »

if you were previously a crafter as the OP is, you might have had so much of that matrial at home already... you said yourself you didnt count the price of the ink as you already had it, well if i were to have made your invites i probably wouldnt have had to buy the card, the glue or the envelopes...as i have a huge selection of stuff like that so could have made them even cheaper

and i think thats the point OP is missing, if you walk into the first specialist shop you come across and buy all the materials needed as you have none at home then yes, per invite stuff can get really expensive, but as a "crafter" she should have had the majority of the stuff reasonably priced and sourced already and that i imagine is why some of the people on this thread cant get thier heads past the £1 mark.

You can't really run a business, though, saying "I already had this stuff, so I won't charge you for it"...But at the same time, you can only charge "professional" prices for stuff...

My orders of service are a pretty good example, I guess....To make them, we bought £12 worth of card, and had to buy a £12 ink cartridge to finish them off. So, all in, the things cost me £24...but is that to say my "costs" if I were selling the things would be £24? No...because I've still got 90% of that cartridge left, and there was only a little left in the first cartridge before it ran out...

So let's say that they used 50% of a cartridge, in total - that's £6 of ink. And we only used half, £6 worth, of the card - so that makes total "costs" £12 total.

But...and here's the kicker...If I were doing it for a business...I wouldn't have run out of ink halfway through printing and had to run to Sainsbury's to get a new cartridge...I'd have bought a bunch online to make sure I had plenty - and bought them at £3 a pop - meaning that I would only charge £1.50 for ink..and thus the total cost is £7.50. Likewise, I'd imagine that, doing this for a business, I'd get through a fair whack of ivory card, so could buy it in larger volume...and my £6 worth of card would cost £3 - total cost £4.50.

So, although, £24 actually went out of my bank account to make them myself, if I were buying them, I wouldn't pay more than a fiver for materials...

Likewise, if I were doing it for a business, I'd have bought a folding machine - cutting 4 hours of labour down to, say, 15 minutes...So, an initial estimate of £24 materials + 2 hours of design + 4 hours of construction @ £10/hour = £84 (70p each)...New estimate, £4.50 materials + 2 hours design, 1/2 hour construction (should have time to make a cup of tea, too ) @ £10/hour = £29.50 (25p each)

So you can see why people's opinions are varying so wildly on these threads...

nykied

That's pretty much the way I look at it too. When I made cards for charity one year, I actually only bought the packs of cards and envelopes, as I already had the hole punch things, the glass paints and the coloured card I used. But had I bought everything from scratch, it would have cost me a heck of a lot more.

Plus I made lots of cups of tea

MrsDrink

Curious_George wrote: »

Mrs Drink I think your invites are fantastic, and the fact they look so professional when you have done them at home is even better

Thank you

Curious_George wrote: »

That i imagine is why some of the people on this thread cant get thier heads past the £1 mark.

I think you've misunderstood me CG, or maybe I've misunderstood you - but that was my point In my first response on this thread I said I'd pay £0.80-£1. In this response I tried to explain my reasons. (Because I'd seen that she'd been to another thread complaining that some of us would only pay such a small amount). My overheads were possibly more than hers (having to buy everything from scratch), and I did use heavier card than she did. However as mine came out at £1.58 a card there is no way I'd pay someone more than that for these origami invites. Now it *might* be that the photos don't do them justice... but I suspect not.

Curious_George wrote: »

of course its all down to personal opinion and taste

Absolutely agree with you - and definitely agree it makes no iota of a difference what sort of invites we use (or whether you have a professional photographer, a guest list, or chair covers :rotfl:) - at the end of the day we'll all be married

MrsDrink

Idiophreak wrote: »

should have time to make a cup of tea, too

Yucky stuff - should be banned... along with coffee...

*throwing up smilie*