Most people planning weddings are more excited for certain parts of the process than others. For some it’s the dress, for others it’s the menu. Personally, I couldn’t wait to design the invitations!
I didn’t go to school for graphic design, but I took a lot of graphic design classes while I was in college. I currently freelance on the side, but rarely do I get full creative freedom on a project.
I decided to skip Save the Dates and go straight for invitations for a variety of reasons. First, I was trying to save money. Second, with a cruise wedding, I’d have to put all the relevant information on the Save the Dates anyway. Third, I suspected that everyone would make their decisions the moment they saw the prices and very few people would need time to think it over.
Of course, I scoured the internet looking for ideas. Pinterest and Etsy were a big help for inspiration. I knew I was going to order through Vistaprint, so I looked through their options and even ordered their wedding sample kit to give me an idea of what I was working with. They even have templates for Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, so I didn’t have to worry about getting the sizing right.
For the invitation itself, I decided to go with a boarding pass look on a flat 4” x 8” card. I had a lot of information to cram onto a little space.
At this point, and I don’t remember where, but I found the actual Disney Cruise Line font, and I traced the Disney Dream logo. I drew Duffy in 2014 for a phone case I was ordering, and thankfully I still have the art file, so I could just drop him in. I think he look me about seven hours to draw the first time, so I’m grateful I didn’t have to do that again.
For the RSVPs, I decided to go with postcards. With postcards, I wouldn’t need to include envelopes, and it would cut down on postage. I used the Vistaprint 5” x 7” flat postcard. The design was based on the artwork of the ship from the Navigator app. Of course, I used Duffy again, but I also added his and Shellie May’s necklaces, in addition to a Disney sandcastle. The sandcastle shape is actually from a painting I did back in 2016. I still had the line art from doing it in Illustrator first, so I converted it from gray to tan, and presto! Sandcastle!
For RSVP options, I actually did three options, and I tried really hard to make them all positive. “Regretfully declines” just sounds kind of depressing to me, and “Graciously accepts” didn’t sound exciting enough.
Now Vistaprint sends you white envelopes even when you order postcards, but the envelope for my 4” x 8” invitation wasn’t going to fit the 5” x 7” RSVP card, nor vice versa. So, I ordered custom 5” x 9” envelopes. I used the same blue gradient, and I printed our return address right on them. I added some compass art, and our hashtag on the back. (Still so proud of that pun!) Then I made the space to write the address look like Duffy’s necklace, or I tried to. If you’re not Duffy obsessed like I am, I’m not sure you’d get the reference. My grandmother didn’t.
I also did invitation seals that look like Duffy pawprints.
Since the cruise would limit our guest list so much, we decided to do a casual get together at Disney’s Boardwalk area, upon our return, to give friends and family a chance to celebrate with us if they wanted to. I knew I’d save money ordering everything at once, so I went ahead and designed post card invitations for the Celebration too. I used the same basic design as the 5” x 7” cards, but I traced over a photograph of the Boardwalk for new art.
Once the invitations came in, I put one together and took it to the post office to have it weighed. It was just under the limit, where it just needed standard postage, so I bought a sheet of forever stamps, and that was that. The guy at the post office actually went out of his way to find cute ones with hearts on them, instead of flags, when I told him they were wedding invitations, and he gave me seashell stamps for the postcards.
It took me about half a day to do all the designs. Probably around seven hours, but I enjoyed every second of it. I went for economy shipping, so turnaround from Vistaprint was about two weeks. If you have something you want to order from Vistaprint, please click here and I’ll get credit for referring you! They do a lot more than just invitations. I also get my business cards from them, and I used to do quite a bit of ordering for my old job at the dog groomers through them.
I designed the invitations in late March, and sent them in April. I set our RSVP deadline as November 1st since the cruise packet had to be turned in 90 days before the cruise, I wanted plenty of time to track down stragglers. I will say, out of all our “no” guests, I only had one actually put it in the mail. Another friend handed me hers, one told me in person, and I got an email from someone else. We had three other parties just never respond at all. Rather than bringing it up and making things awkward, I just assumed they weren’t going and left it at that.
Fun Fact: One guest didn’t realize I designed these until I told her. She thought they were standard Disney Cruise Line invitations, approved by Disney and everything. While it would be cool if they did that, this was all me!
Total cost for the invitation order was $60.71, including shipping. I spent $18.70 on stamps. I wound up using a free credit from the Vistaprint rewards program to order some additional invitations for $9.59, about a month later, so there would be some for us to frame and keep.
Out of pocket expenses so far:
Cruise Fare and Wedding Package: $4,944.06
Invitations and Postage: $89
Total: $5033.06
