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

You’re engaged and in the beginnings of the wedding planning process – Hooray! This is such an exciting time for you and your fiancé. While there are so many incredible details and fun elements to plan out for your wedding celebration, it can also be a little overwhelming at times. We know, we’ve been in your shoes!

We’re here to help guide you through the stationery selection process, and help you decide what will give your wedding a true branded style. Meaning, your wedding day will be a true reflection of you as a couple, along with infusing it with elements that are most important to you both.

When you start looking for wedding invitations, there are so many elements to think about. Before starting our search, it’s important to iron out these details:

Once you’ve decided on your color palette for the wedding, it will give you a starting point for selecting your wedding invitations. You’ll want to tie in your wedding colors in many aspects of your invitation – from your paper and envelope selections, to your envelope liner, to your invitation embellishments (wax seals and silk ribbon, for example). You’ll also want to select an ink color for your wedding invitation printing that best coordinates with your wedding color scheme.

Your Style

There are so many wedding styles out there, so it's important to narrow this down from the get-go. The most popular wedding styles are modern, rustic, traditional, simplistic, elegant, and luxury. Or perhaps you are planning a hybrid of styles! This day belongs to you, so be sure to reflect that.

It’s so important that your wedding style is reflected in your wedding invitation suite. It will set the tone for your big day and relay to guests what’s in store for your big day. Are you having a contemporary wedding at a big city, high-rise venue? Or perhaps an elegant barn wedding? Or maybe you’re planning an intimate affair at a private family estate. Whatever style your wedding day conveys will be factor into guests’ attire, transportation and travel arrangements, childcare, and even weekend plans surrounding the wedding day.  

If you’re working with a custom designer for your wedding invitations, they will be a huge help in guiding you through this part of the invitation selection process. They will have many suggestions as to what design elements and embellishments will best convey your wedding style through your wedding invitation suite.

Number of Guest Households

In order to properly provide an accurate pricing estimate for your wedding invitations, your invitation designer will need to know the quantity of invitations you’ll need. It’s important to remember you’ll need one invitation per household, not one per guest! Don’t make the common mistake of ordering twice as many wedding invitations as you’ll actually need.

Create an Excel spreadsheet of your guests – this will allow you to populate their addresses as you obtain them, and keep a running tally of the household count. Once you feel your guest list is complete (or close to complete), you can move forward with the wedding invitation ordering process.

For the final ordering quantity, we recommend adding 10-15 extra to your final household count. This will give you enough extras to keep on-hand in the event of returned/damaged/lost invitations, last minute guest list additions, and keepsakes. Also, don’t forget to provide your photographer with 1-2 invitation suites! They will want to snap some pretty flat lay photos of your wedding invitation suite, alongside your wedding day details and florals.

Projected Wedding Invitation Investment (Budget)

It’s incredibly important to have a budget planned out for your wedding invitations, before proceeding with the invitation design and ordering process. This will help your custom designer determine what invitation types and elements will be the best fit for you and your desired wedding invitation investment.

As a wedding invitation designer, that last thing we want to do is to show you lots of options that are ultimately outside your wedding invitation budget. We want to help you find that perfect wedding invitation balance of beautiful AND affordable! =)

Photo Credit: Kaylee Creighton Photography