The Look
Stationery: save the dates, invitations, on the day
Stationery is the first thing anyone sees of the wedding, months before the day, and it is the part of the decor budget most often ordered in the wrong quantity. Both of those are worth getting right, and neither depends on spending more.
This page covers what you genuinely need, how many, when each piece has to go out, and where print costs jump for reasons the order form never explains.
What you actually need, and when
Three waves, and only the middle one is compulsory.
Save the dates go out roughly nine to twelve months ahead, and their only job is to stop people booking something else. They are optional. They matter for a destination wedding, a bank holiday, or anywhere guests need to arrange travel and accommodation, and they are close to pointless for a local wedding invited a year out anyway.
Invitations go out around three months ahead, or four to six for a destination wedding. This is the piece that has to carry information accurately, because every error here becomes a phone call.
On the day stationery is order of service, table plan, table numbers, place cards and menus. This is where quantities get miscounted, and where the styling either holds together with everything else or visibly does not.
The quantity rule that saves the most money
Invitations are counted per household, not per guest. A couple gets one invitation. A family of four gets one invitation. This single distinction routinely cuts an invitation order by something close to half, and it is the most common overspend on this page.
Place cards and menus are the opposite: those are genuinely per guest, and menus can be per two guests if they are shared down the table, which is standard and looks perfectly deliberate.
Add a working surplus of about ten per cent on anything printed with names, because names get spelled wrong, guests get added, and a reprint of five costs almost as much as a reprint of fifty.
Where print costs actually jump
Four thresholds, none of which are obvious from a price list.
- Quantity breaks. Print is priced in bands, so ordering just under a break costs disproportionately more per unit. Always check the price at the next band up, because ordering more is frequently cheaper in total.
- Finishing. Foil, letterpress, embossing, edge painting and die cutting are separate processes with their own setup charges. Each one added is a step change rather than an increment, which is why two finishes can cost more than double one.
- Size and shape. Standard sizes cut efficiently from a parent sheet. A slightly unusual size wastes paper and can push a piece into a higher postage band, so it costs twice over.
- Postage. Weight and thickness decide the postage band, and heavy card with a thick envelope and an insert can move an invitation into a substantially more expensive category. On a large guest list postage can rival the printing.
The approach by budget
One weight of card, one process, digital print
Digital printing on a single decent card stock, with no finishing, in a standard size. Spend the available money on the paper rather than on process, because weight and texture are what people register when they hold something, and they cost far less than foil.
Cut the pieces rather than the quality. Skip save the dates, put the detail online and print an invitation that carries the essentials plus a link. Fewer pieces done properly always reads better than more pieces done thinly.
On the day, table numbers and a table plan are the two that earn their place. Individual menus are the easiest to drop, or to share between two.
Designs and templates
Templates are the efficient route at a tight budget: a considered design, printed locally on good stock, at a fraction of a bespoke commission.
Browse stationery designs and templates Affiliate link. If you buy through it we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you, and it never changes what we recommend.One finish, used once, and a consistent suite
At mid budget there is room for a single finishing process. Use it on one element only, most effectively the names or the couple’s monogram on the invitation, and let everything else sit plain around it. One foil detail on plain stock looks considered. Foil on every piece looks like a catalogue.
This is also where the suite should be locked as a system rather than ordered piecemeal. One typeface pairing, one card stock, one ink colour, applied from the save the date through to the place cards. The most common failure at this level is on the day stationery ordered months later, from a different supplier, in a different typeface, which quietly undoes the whole thing.
Bespoke design, and the pieces that stay in the room
At a generous budget the money buys design work rather than more printing: something drawn for this wedding, in a palette matched to the room, applied consistently across every piece including the ones people usually forget.
The best value here is in the large-format pieces that live in the room all day, the table plan and any signage, because those are seen by every guest for hours and photograph as part of the decor rather than as paperwork.
Where spend stops repaying: additional finishing processes stacked on the invitation. Beyond one or two, guests register expense rather than design, and the piece is in their hands for a few minutes before it goes on a fridge.
Common mistakes
Ordering invitations per guest
Counting heads rather than households can nearly double the order, and it is the single most expensive stationery error.
Instead: build the list by household first, then count, then add about ten per cent.
Ordering on the day stationery separately, months later
By then the original stock, typeface or supplier may be unavailable, and the suite stops matching.
Instead: specify the whole suite at once even if it prints in two runs, and keep the specification written down.
Not weighing a finished invitation before ordering postage
Thickness and weight decide the postage band, and a heavy suite can cost more to post than to print.
Instead: assemble one complete invitation, weigh and measure it, and check the band before committing to the design.
Proofreading only the design
Dates, times, postcodes and names are the things that generate phone calls, and they are the things the eye skips when the layout looks good.
Instead: have someone who is not involved check the facts alone, ignoring the design entirely.
Putting too much on the invitation
Accommodation, travel, gift information and dress code crowd the piece and push it into a heavier postage band.
Instead: keep the invitation to the essentials and put the detail on a wedding website or a single lightweight insert.
What stationery costs
Printed stationery is priced per item at a given quantity, on a given stock, with a given finish. Several UK printers publish their per-card prices openly at stated quantities, which is the most transparent pricing anywhere in this hub. The figures below are published prices at the quantity shown.
| What it buys | Published price | Source | Captured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Save the date card, A6, at 50 or more | £1.50 per card, inc VAT | Sheaf Stationery, Yorkshire and the Humber | 11 Aug 2026 |
| Invitation, A5 single sided, at 50 or more | £2.00 per card, inc VAT | Sheaf Stationery, Yorkshire and the Humber | 11 Aug 2026 |
| Invitation, A5 double sided, at 50 or more | £2.50 per card, inc VAT | Sheaf Stationery, Yorkshire and the Humber | 11 Aug 2026 |
| RSVP postcard, A6 | £1.00 per card, inc VAT | Sheaf Stationery, Yorkshire and the Humber | 11 Aug 2026 |
| Order of service, A5 4 pages folded, at 25 or more | £2.25 per copy, inc VAT | Sheaf Stationery, Yorkshire and the Humber | 11 Aug 2026 |
| Order of service, A5 8 pages, at 25 or more | £2.75 per copy, inc VAT | Sheaf Stationery, Yorkshire and the Humber | 11 Aug 2026 |
| Place name card, tent-fold, at 25 or more | £1.00 per card, inc VAT | Sheaf Stationery, Yorkshire and the Humber | 11 Aug 2026 |
| Menu card, A5 or DL, at 50 or more | £2.00 per card, inc VAT | Sheaf Stationery, Yorkshire and the Humber | 11 Aug 2026 |
| Table name or number card, A6, at 25 or more | £2.50 per card, inc VAT | Sheaf Stationery, Yorkshire and the Humber | 11 Aug 2026 |
| Flat invitation, per invitation | from £1.00, VAT not stated | By Jo Wedding Stationery, Wales | 11 Aug 2026 |
| Pocketfold invitation, per invitation | from £4.50, VAT not stated | By Jo Wedding Stationery, Wales | 11 Aug 2026 |
| Wax seal, per seal | £0.85, VAT not stated | By Jo Wedding Stationery, Wales | 11 Aug 2026 |
| Table plan, A2, one plan | from £59.00, VAT not stated | By Jo Wedding Stationery, Wales | 11 Aug 2026 |
| Table plan, one plan | £59 to £69, VAT not stated | Purple Mountain Designs, Yorkshire and the Humber | 11 Aug 2026 |
Every figure above is a price the supplier publishes openly on its own website, captured on the date shown. Published prices change, they often exclude VAT, delivery and setup, and they are not a quote. Treat them as a guide to the shape of the market, then confirm anything you are relying on directly with the supplier.
Sample: 3 suppliers in Yorkshire and the Humber and Wales only, captured August 2026. Treat this as a regional guide; print prices in your area may differ.
Read those figures against the household rule at the top of this page. At around £2 to £2.50 an invitation, the difference between counting households and counting heads on a 100 guest list is roughly the cost of the entire on the day suite. That is the single largest saving available on this page, and it costs nothing but counting correctly.
Note also that only one of those printers states its VAT position, and it is the one quoting inclusive prices. A list that appears cheaper per card may not be once VAT is added, so confirm it before comparing.
Two things remain genuinely quote-only. Bespoke design work, and foiled or letterpress suites, are consistently priced after consultation, with studios publishing whole-project ranges rather than per-card rates. For those the position is price on application. Price your actual suite at your actual quantity with two or three printers, price it again at the next quantity band up, and check the postage band on a finished sample.
Check the postage band before you finalise the design
Postage is decided by size, thickness and weight, and it is the cost most often discovered after the invitations are printed. Royal Mail publishes its current prices openly, so a finished sample can be checked against them before anything is committed.
Check current Royal Mail prices