This day in age, it's so incredibly important that we're aware of your Earthly footprint. I often find myself asking, in what aspects of life are we wasteful that be can reduced or eliminated? What am I using frequently that is doing more harm than good? In what ways can I be more resourceful in my everyday life and work settings? What can I do to help ensure I leave behind a clean planet for future generations?

While I still have a long way to go and still have many aspects of life where I'd like to make adjustments, I've come up with a handful of ways that I can run a greener, more resourceful and more Earth-friendly business.

Eliminate plastic shopping bags

This is one practice I’ve pulled over from my everyday habits. I don’t go to the grocery store without my reusable bags, so I’m also in the habit of taking them with me to the craft store, paper store, floral shop, and print shop whenever I need to pickup supplies or invitation orders from the print shop. This is an easy one, and something everyone could (and should) get onboard with!

Side Bar: Did you see that Kroger is eliminating the use of all disposable plastic shopping bags by 2025? While I wish it would be implemented much sooner (thus motivating the masses to start using reusable bags), this still makes my heart so happy! Fingers crossed that more big box stores and other retailers jump onboard.

Reuse Packing Material

This is another easy way that small businesses can cut back on waste. As an added bonus, it also cuts back on your packing material costs. It’s a win-win!

You may be thinking that this seems a little generic, and takes away the special style your current packaging conveys. There are still many ways you can carry your brand into the recycled packing! Consider packing tape with your pre-printed logo and/or brand-related verbiage, a lovely colored ribbon tied around the packaged items inside the box, and a personal hand-written note for the client inside (written on branded stationery, of course). There are so many ways to be resourceful in this recycling method AND stay on brand!

I also include a cute little notecard explaining our use of recycled materials, so clients know their wedding stationery packaging is also helping save the world. Talk about wedding invitations with an impact!

To get started: The items we often reuse are cardboard boxes (of course!), bubble wrap, air packs, and kraft paper. We don’t receive many items with packing peanuts anymore, but when we do, we also reuse them! We also reuse cardboard inserts, which often come in our custom wedding paper sheets. They make great backers for laser cut items, as well as for keeping mailers rigid when mailing samples and smaller wedding stationery orders.

Online Invoicing and Bookkeeping

This one seems so obvious. Yet, I still have many suppliers that I work with who still send mailed invoices. A few of them are well known, so you know they are mailing out hundreds a month! Stay green, cut back on paper, and keep your invoicing and bookkeeping to a digital database. Not only does it save some paper, it’s a much easier method of staying organized.

Another way to save paper in this category is to have your store receipts emailed to you, instead of printed at the store. Many stores, such as Office Depot and Michaels, offer this convenient feature.

How do you keep your business running green and environmentally friendly? We’d love to hear your suggestions!

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TAGS: Indianapolis Wedding Invitations Carmel Wedding Paper Store Zionsville Brownsburg Wedding Invitations Paper Shop Ceremony Programs Menus Table Numbers Laser Cut Backdrop Sign Boxwood Wall Rental Custom Designed Wedding Stationery Bar Mitzvah Bah Mitzvah Event Wedding Planner

Our main service that we provide here at Interprintation is full service custom design for wedding invitations and wedding day stationery.

What does this entail, you ask? We’re happy to give you a run down of all the perks you’ll receive through our full service invitation design process.

This invitation design service allows you to be as present as you wish throughout the design process. Initially, you will meet with the owner and lead designer, Cari Bowersock, to discuss your wedding color and paper selections and invitation design style. This meeting will also allow you the chance to look at invitation add on options – such as custom wax seals, silk ribbon, double envelope sets, pocketfolds, vellum gatefold wraps, and even custom laser cut bands and wraps. You’ll also be able to look at samples for various printing methods, including letterpress, gold foil (also called foil stamping), thermography (raised ink), debossing, embossing, and digital offset printing. Other new trends we are also beginning to offer are deckled edge paper, velvet and other textured papers.

After our meeting & once you’ve submitted your custom design retainer fee, the fun part begins – the custom design process! You will receive a batch of custom wedding invitation designs in the form of PDF documents. This will allow you to see various calligraphy, serif and san serif fonts, along with a variety of design elements, based on the details discussed during the initial meeting. We are committed to transforming your wedding style and inspiration into a custom wedding invitation – designed especially with you and your fiancé in mind.

As you can see above, the design process allows you to make font and design changes, making it truly customized to your special wedding day.

If you are not local to the Indianapolis area, we are happy to work with you remotely! We often work with clients in other areas outside central Indiana, so this is no problem at all. You will still receive the upmost attention and customer service that our Indianapolis area brides receive. Our digital wedding invitation design process works great for brides in any location, whether that be in Indianapolis, Carmel, Brownsburg, Zionsville, Greenwood, Whitestown, Louisville, KY, Chicago, IL or beyond.

The fun doesn’t stop there though! Once the wedding invitation design process is completed and the wedding invitations are mailed out, we will begin the custom design process for your wedding day stationery. The most commonly requested wedding day stationery items are wedding ceremony programs, wedding reception menus, seating charts, seating cards, place cards, table numbers, and favor tags. Other popular add on items are wedding weekend itineraries, coasters, beverage napkins, signature drink signs and other reception signs.

We also offer laser cutting services! We have laser machines in-house and do all of this here in the studio. We love helping clients create laser cut wood and acrylic items for their wedding backdrops, laser cut wood place cards for guests’ plates, laser cut wood or acrylic table numbers, and even laser cut paper items – menus are the most popularly requested laser cut items!

We love serving Indianapolis and central Indiana brides with our custom graphic design services – we feel it adds a personal feel to the wedding invitation ordering process. It’s your most special day, and we’re so honored to help!