How much do wedding invitations cost?

The typical cost of wedding invitations depends almost entirely on how they're printed. Here are the published numbers next to ours, so you can see where each kind of invitation sits.

These figures don't measure the same thing, and that's where most budget confusion starts. The average cost of wedding invitations in The Knot's study covers weddings of every size and every kind of printing. Minted's per-set prices are for an order of 100 sets, and their example suites include extras like ribbon, a wax seal or a vellum jacket. Ours are for 100 suites with envelopes, printed return addresses and a digital proof included. Before you compare any two quotes, check three things: how many suites, which pieces are in each one, and whether envelopes, addressing and shipping are counted.

This is every price on our suite ladder, with the per-suite figure underneath. Budget with the total. The per-suite number is there so you can see what setup is doing to small orders.

• Essential: the invitation and a reply card, one ink or foil colour on 32pt cotton, envelopes with your return address printed.
• Classic: everything in Essential, plus a details card for travel, timings and your wedding website.
• Signature: everything in Classic, plus printed guest addressing, envelope liners and a wax seal.
• Every suite: a free digital proof, a person checking every file before anything prints, and free US shipping.

I'd rather tell you this now than have you discover it at checkout: below about 75 suites, most of what you pay for is setup, not paper.

Every letterpress plate and every foil die is made once, for your wording, before a single card is pressed. Then the press is set up, the ink is mixed by hand to your colour, and the first sheets are pulled and checked against your proof. That work costs the same whether the run is 50 suites or 200. The paper and press time for each extra suite is the small part.

Here's what that looks like on our Classic suite:

Twice the cards, from 50 to 100, costs about a fifth more. Halve a 100-suite order and you save less than a fifth. Go from 100 to 200 and the total rises by about a third, while each suite gets cheaper again.

Two things follow from that. If you're having 40 guests, a letterpress suite will cost you more per invitation than it would for 150; that's the plate, not a small-wedding surcharge. And spares are cheap on the first run. Ten extra suites added to your original order cost very little, while a second run later carries its own press setup.

Six things move the number. Here they are in the order I'd look at them, each with the catch that comes with it.

Letterpress and foil are priced per colour, per location. Each letterpress colour is its own plate and its own pass through the press, with the ink hand-mixed to a Pantone. Each foil colour is its own metal die. Gold foil and black letterpress on both faces is two dies, two plates and four passes, and pressing both faces means bonding two sheets (more on that below). One colour on one side is the most efficient real letterpress or foil there is, and on a well-set invitation it rarely looks like you held back.

Flat digital printing is the cheapest way to put words on a card, and you can't feel it. Letterpress presses the type into soft cotton, so guests feel every line under their thumb. Foil lays down real metal shine. On our suites one colour of letterpress and one colour of foil cost the same, so choose on look, not budget. The catch: letterpress ink is see-through, so light ink on dark paper looks chalky. If you want white or gold on black cotton, that's foil.

Our suites are printed on 32pt cotton, about 0.8 mm, a touch thicker than a credit card. It's soft enough to take a deep letterpress bite and stiff enough not to curl in the post. If you want an impression on both faces, or a deep bite with printing on the back, we bond two sheets together (duplex) so neither side shows a ghost of the other. That's a real upgrade with a real cost, and it's only worth it when the back of the card matters.

This is usually the biggest single jump, which is why printed guest addressing and liners live in Signature. Guest names print flat in ink, which keeps every envelope consistent. Names in foil are a different job: every different name needs its own small die, so personalised foil is priced per name. Envelopes also take ink or foil only in set areas and never to the edge, so the return address goes on the flap or front, placed on your envelope template before the proof.

Painted edges, die-cut shapes, vellum wraps and accent pieces in acrylic, metal or wood all sit outside the three suites and are quoted (the wax seal is the one extra already in Signature). Each has its own rules. Painted edges are brushed onto a clamped stack, so they follow a straight outline, not a notch. Metal and acrylic can't be letterpressed or embossed: metal is engraved, etched or UV printed, and acrylic is engraved or UV printed. One specialty piece in a suite does more than five scattered across it.

If your designer has already drawn the suite, upload it and we'll check it against how letterpress and foil really behave. If you'd like us to set your wording and layout, design help is $95 at checkout. A fully custom design from scratch is a separate service (wedding suite artwork). For comparison, Minted's custom design service starts from a $300 design fee (Minted, last updated 5 March 2025).

If you want one recommendation from me, it's Classic. The details card is what keeps the invitation clean: hotels, timings, dress code and your wedding website go there, so the invitation can be just the names, the date and the place, set with room to breathe. That's the version of a suite most people keep.

Choose Essential if your wedding website carries all the details and you'd rather put the money into one beautiful card. It's the quietest full suite, and there's nothing second-best about it.

Choose Signature if you don't want to spend two evenings addressing envelopes, or you want the liner and the seal that make people photograph the envelope before they open it. Don't buy it for the wax seal alone; that's the one add-on I'd skip if the budget is tight.

When the total comes in high, cut in this order. Each step saves real money and costs you the least in how the suite feels in the hand.

1. Drop the second colour first. One colour pressed well beats two colours on a budget. It's the biggest saving that nobody notices.
2. Move the details online. Essential plus a good wedding website does the same job as a details card.
3. Print guest names in ink, not foil. Every name in foil needs its own small die, which is why foil names are priced per name. Flat printed addressing is included in Signature and looks consistent on every envelope.
4. Keep the save the date simple. It goes out months earlier and does one job. Spend on the piece people hold on the day.
5. Order the right quantity once. One suite per household plus 10 to 15 percent. A second run later costs far more than spares on the first.

Where I wouldn't save: paper weight and proofing. I'd cut a colour before I'd go to a thinner sheet. Thin paper won't take a deep letterpress bite, and the whole reason for letterpress goes with it. And never skip reading your proof line by line, with someone who didn't write the wording.

1. Count households, not guests. Go through your list and count addresses. Add 10 to 15 percent.
2. Find that quantity in the table above. Pick the suite that matches how you'll handle details and addressing. If you're between quantities, round up; the next step costs less than you'd think.
3. Add what sits outside the suite. Postage both ways, calligraphy if you're using it, save the dates, and any day-of pieces.
4. Compare like with like. Line up quotes by number of suites, pieces per suite, envelopes, addressing and shipping. A cheaper quote that leaves out envelopes usually isn't cheaper.

If the total lands where you want it, you're done. If it doesn't, go back to where to save and work down the list in order.

Our sample kit is $8 with free US shipping, and you get a $10 credit on your first order. I'll be straight with you: it isn't a wedding swatch box. It's a bundle of real production samples built around business cards. But it holds what you're actually deciding between: cotton stock, how deep a letterpress bite reads, what a blind emboss does without ink, how a painted edge sits, and a hot foil swatch card with every foil we keep on the shelf. Hold the foils against your envelope colour in your own light before you choose.

Three wedding projects from our case studies, with the briefs, the concepts and the decisions that drove the final price.