With your wedding day being one of, if not the most important day of your life, it is important to do everything that you can to try and get everything right from the get go. Although they only play a small part in your overall day, we have noticed more and more people reaching out to ask for advice on the best cardstock for wedding invitations on the market.
It also seems that with each wedding season that comes and goes, the number of people reaching out to ask for advice on their wedding invitations increases with no signs of it stopping. Due to this, we have decided to publish this article going over what we feel is the best types of cardstock and the best options within each different type to use for your wedding invitations.
Our hope is that we will not only be able to help our readers choose the perfect cardstock for their wedding invitations but also help to save them some money along the way. If you are currently planning your wedding, you have probably already worked out that anything to do with your big day has a hefty premium added on to its normal cost. Thankfully though, when it comes to cardstock, you are able to save a decent chunk of change by avoiding pre-made cardstock wedding invitations and taking advantage of some tips and tricks that we will cover below.
What Kind Of Cardstock Do You Use For Wedding Invitations?
Although traditional paper wedding invitations have been a very popular option for a long time, cardstock wedding invitations definatley do seem to be the more popular option at the time of writing and it is by a long shot. Although budget and personal preference will all come into play, we believe that this is due to cardstock offering more customization when it comes to adding trims with other materials such as lace to help make your wedding invitations that little bit more special.
What Kind Of Cardstock Is Best For Wedding Invitations?
Each bride has her own personal preferences for her wedding with a color scheme, a theme, and a number of customisations to make it unique to her. This is why we are going to go over the various different types of card stock below with the advantages and disadvantages of each when used for wedding invitations.
We feel that this is the best way to advise our readers on the type of cardstock that they should be using for their wedding invitations as you are then able to take the information that we give you and then see how it fits into your overall theme for your wedding. Please also note that if you are wanting to print your own wedding invitations off at home rather than order them via a specialist printing company you will have to ensure that the cardstock you choose can actually fit into the printer you have.
Linen Cardstock For Wedding Invitations
Although it is not a very popular option for regular arts and crafts, linen cardstock has proven to be a very popular option for wedding invitations. This is due to linen cardstock having a very delicate texture that feels like it has been woven and is very soft to touch. With many of the wedding invitation customizations such as adding lace or ribbons to the invite having a similar feel and texture, the two tend to go very well together.
If you are planning to print a design on linen cardstock then even entry-level printers tend to work well with it as it can hide any imperfections in the design when printed with ease. If you are planning to have your wedding invitations professionally printed then a professional level printer will work flawlessly with linen cardstock offering outstanding results.
A more traditional option that adds a more personal touch to your wedding invitations is to handwrite them. Another advantage of linen cardstock is that it performs very well with ballpoint pens, rollerball pens, gel pens, and fountain pens allowing you to customize it as required. Although there are thinner GSM rated linen cardstock, the majority of it should not have issues with bleeding or ghosting when writing your invitations by hand either.
Canvas Cardstock For Wedding Invitations
We are not sure if the recent surge in using canvas cardstock is simply a fad or if it is here to stay but more and more brides do tend to be selecting canvas cardstock for their wedding invitations. Similar to linen cardstock covered above, canvas cardstock also has a textured feel to it but the texture is a little more pronounced and noticeable with a rougher touch to it.
If you are wanting to add ribbon or lace to your wedding invitations then the textures definitely do tend to go better with linen cardstock rather than canvas cardstock. Canvas cardstock has managed to carve out a niche for itself in the wedding invitation marker for more traditional, usually hand written wedding invitations though and this is where it seems to dominate.
The thicker, higher GSM rating of the cardstock ensures that it is smooth and easy to write on with a wide range of pens and that it will be free from ghosting or bleeding too. As canvas cardstock does tend to be a little thicker than the other featured options on our list, it can be a pain to get it to work well with entry-level home printers but it can still work.
Another advantage of canvas cardstock over some of the other options on our list is that its primary purpose is for arts and crafts and scrapbooking. Due to this, it is usually available in a much wider range of color options than some other cardstocks on our list without you having to put a special order in.
Felt Cardstock For Wedding Invitations
Although some brides do use felt cardstock for their wedding invitations, it definitely does tend to be more niche and less popular. It can also be harder to source, especially in colors other than white but you can often get your felt cardstock online with next day delivery if you arnt able to find it in your local store.
Felt card stock does still have a nice and smooth texture to it but it definitely does tend to be a little more coarse than our primary recommendation, linen cardstock. Another thing that tends to hold felt cardstock back from being widely used for wedding invitations is that it tends to be one of the thicker options available. Although this should not cause issues if you are handwriting your wedding invitations, it usually does not fit through a regular home printer.
Due to this, we usually recommend that our readers look else where as there are cheaper options on the marker than offer better results and tend to be much easier to work with. We know that some brides do choose felt cardstock but this is definatley a minority due to the problems associated with it covered above.
Colored Cardstock For Wedding Invitations
Although you see people recommending “colored cardstock” for wedding invitations on a regular basis, especially if you are on any wedding planning social media groups or forums but there are a huge number of different types of colored cardstock. You will often see other featured types of cardstock on our list marketed as “colored cardstock” but not give the actual type such as “linen colored cardstock”.
This makes it more difficult and if you are checking out an online listing for colored cardstock or you are in your local stationary store and the product you are considering does not actually list the type of cardstock that it is, we would recommend that you avoid it. As we have touched on above, some cardstocks such as felt are not really suitable for wedding invitations so there is no point risking purchasing it by accident.
Real colored cardstock is essentially just colored craft paper that has specifically been designed for use with arts and crafts and doesn’t really offer any other advantaged for use as wedding invitations. We have seen people accidentally purchase this due to seeing people recommend that they use “colored cardstock” for their wedding invitations.
The majority of the time when you see these recommendations, what they actually mean is something like colored linen cardstock and the type are very different. This is essentially just linen cardstock offering you all of the advantages that we listed above in our linen cardstock section but it has had a colored dye applied to it in production.
Wood Grain Cardstock For Wedding Invitations
Depending on the overall theme of your wedding, a decent wood grain cardstock can be an excellent option and we actually feel that it is underrated for use as wedding invitations. It has a subtle wood grain textured embossed into the cardstock making it look like wood and it is available in a wide range of different colors.
If you are wanting to move away for the popular ribbon or lace accessories for your wedding invitations and go with something like vellum as and underlay then wood grain cardstock can work very well. Although most people do just use the regular white option, the various slightly off-white options tend to work very well for wedding invitations too.
The regular wood grain cardstock should work with the vast majority of entry-level home printers with ease allowing you to save money and print off your own wedding invitations on the cardstock if needed. It also performs very well for handwritten invitations too with the majority of regularly available packs of wood grain cardstock being higher GSM so they won’t have issues with bleeding or ghosting either.
Laid Cardstock For Wedding Invitations
In our opinion, the most overlooked and underrated cardstock that you are able to use for wedding invitations is laid cardstock but depending on where you live, it can be hard to source as it is pretty niche. If you are wanting to stand out from the crowd then laid cardstock is probably the option for you as it breaks away from the linen and wood grain cardstock that tends to be more popular with brides helping your invitations stand out.
The vertical ridges on the card stock and its range of white and slightly off-white options make it a good option for your wedding invitations, especially if you are wanting to write your invitations by hand using a fountain pen or dip pen. The majority of laid cardstock is over 200 GSM so you will not have any issues with bleeding or ghosting even if you use a wet writing pen to writer out your wedding invitations.
On the flipside of this though, 200 GSM does tend to be too thick to work with the majority of home printers so if you are wanting to print off your wedding invitations then another option is probably going to be better. If you are getting a professional printing company to print off your wedding invitations then their industrial printers should have no issues with laid cardstock at all.
What GSM Cardstock Should I Use For Wedding Invitations?
The GSM (grams per square meter) rating of the cardstock you use for your wedding invitations will depend on what you are wanting to do with them. If you are wanting to print off your wedding invitations on your cardstock using a home printer then a lower GSM rating is better (125GSM or lower) as it will fit through the majority of home printers with ease.
If you are wanting to write your wedding invitations on your cardstock by hand then a higher GSM rating tends to be better, usually 100GSM or higher. This will prevent any issues with bleeding or ghosting when you write your invitations and keep them looking neat and tidy. If you are planning on writing your wedding invitations with a particularly wet writing fountain pen or dip pen then we would recommend you try to go with 150GSM or higher to prevent bleeding and ghosting though.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over the best cardstock for wedding invitations to a close. We hope that we have helped you make your decision on the cardstock that you want to use for your wedding invitations as well as helped you save some money. When it comes to using cardstock for something as personal and special as your wedding invitations, there is no one size fits all option so we have tried to explain the advantages and disadvantages of each in the article to ensure our readers know exactly what the expect.
