If there’s a wedding in your future, congratulations! You've got a lot of decisions to make in the coming months, and we’d like to take a few minutes to chat with you about your wedding invitations. More specifically, we’d like to chat with you before you make the decision to order your invitations online.
Now we’re not here to bash any of the invitation web sites, as there certainly are some out there that are doing beautiful work and that I’m sure offer a really great experience.
However, I also feel really strongly that there are very compelling advantages to working with a local stationer as opposed to ordering online, and I’d like to share a few of those to consider.
First and foremost is that it’s really great to have a LIVE HUMAN to help walk you through the process! Ordering wedding invitations can be overwhelming and intimidating. There are lots of options and a lot of decisions to be made, and here are just a few:
What type of printing will you use?
What pieces do you need?
What fonts and colors do you like?
What about the wording?
In this day and age, there are many really unique and interesting family situations that need to be addressed in the wording of your invitation (believe us when we say we’ve seen them all)! We can give you really good advice to make sure these situations are handled appropriately and that everyone on all sides of the family will be happy with the finished product.
There’s also the peace of mind of knowing that, at the end of the day, you’re going to be 100% pleased with the product. We stand behind everything we sell, as do all of the vendors that we work with...we’ve chosen them carefully over the years., If by some chance there's any sort of a rare problem along the way, we’ll make sure that it gets fixed – in fact, many times you may not even know that there WAS a problem, because we’re just going to take care of it so that it’s not anything that you have to worry about!
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Next, you'll want to consider that paper products do not always look in "real life" the same way that they look online. Often times, colors will look very different on a computer screen or on a printer than they do in real life. Paper stock can feel different from what you expect. If you’re going to move forward order online, I highly recommend that you order samples if there is an opportunity to do so in advance, because often you might be surprised at what that paper stock actually looks and feels like when you’re actually holding it in your hand.
In fact, we've even had situations where couples have come to us and said, “We ordered our invitations online, and we hate them. They don’t look or feel like what we expected, and we’re starting over. Can you help us?” So, you’ll avoid that if you use a local stationer..
Another thought concerns selection.. Everyone automatically thinks, “I need to go online because they thousands of choices and I can find whatever I want.” Certainly there are a wealth of options online; however, I’d like to offer that we also have thousands of wedding invitations for you to choose from, across the entire spectrum of styles and prices: we have traditional, luxurious and elegant Vera Wang and Crane wedding invitations....and rustic, Vermont-y letterpress invitations....and really fun, modern, digital invitations. There are even options that we can print right here in-house that are wonderful if you're watching your budget or need something turned around quickly.
Which leads us to another point! Sometimes we have brides and grooms come in and say, “Oh my goodness, it’s March and our wedding’s in May, and we’re just realizing that those invitations are supposed to be in the mail 8 to 10 weeks before the wedding date.” We do offer the option of an in-house printing department, where we have hundreds of designs that can be customized exactly how you want, and we can often turn them around in a week or less, (sometimes even just a few days depending on the scale of the project). So, if you’re in a rush, come and see us and we’ll see how we can help you!
Something else to consider is people usually think, "I need to go online because that's where I’m going to get the best price." And that’s often not the case. In general, most of the vendors we work with charge the same price on their web sites that we do here. Again, we have a vast selection from super high-end invitations all the way to really fun, casual invitations for people who are a bit more price conscious. So we can almost always work within your budget to get you the invitation of your dreams.
Here’s something that happens quite a bit: a couple comes in with a pretty definite idea of what they want to spend on invitations, and they fall in love with something that’s more expensive. In many cases, we can work with you to suggest tweaks that will save you money, while still getting you the invitation you love.
Of course, when you shop locally, you also get to support local businesses, local vendors, local charities...all of the local people that we work with here in Shelburne on a daily basis, and all of the initiatives that your local Vermont taxes support.
Lastly…we know there are a lot of clients who are big fans of Minted. We totally get it! Minted is loaded with beautiful invitations by independent designers and offers you the convenience of online shopping. But guess what? We are also a Minted retail partner! So you can have the best of both worlds…you can choose from the huge selection of gorgeous Minted invitations, but order through us and get the personal service, advice and assistance of a real person (me!) right here in Vermont....and at the same price that you find on the Minted web site.
So that being said, we’d encourage you to come in and see us! You can give us a call or pop onto our web site at www.shelburnegift.com to book an appointment, and we’re located right on Shelburne Road in Shelburne, just over the South Burlington line. Or, we can work remotely, too, with e-mail, phone and FaceTime...right now we're working on welcome gift designs with a bride in Germany who’s getting married later this year in Stowe!
We’re here to help you. We’re here to make this process fun for you. Planning a wedding is not supposed to be stressful or intimidating…you’re supposed to be having a good time! This is supposed to be the happiest time of your life, and we try to make that happen. Bring your mom, your fiancee, your attendants...we’ll sit with you and we’ll try to make sure you enjoy every step of the process.
Thanks for reading, and we hope to have the chance to meet you soon!
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