How to DIY Wedding Invitations in Canva 2025 | Budget Wedding Planning for a Bride-to-Be

Budget-Friendly Wedding Invitations in Canva

Sarah Gav shares how she designed and assembled polished, budget-friendly wedding invitations. Invitations weren’t her top wedding expense, but she still wanted them to look professional. Her save-the-dates cost $112, and her invitations and related materials brought the total to about $181.

Designing in Canva

Start with a portrait invitation design in Canva. You can browse wedding templates or create a design from scratch; the free version offers fewer templates and elements than Canva Pro.

To keep the design cohesive:

• Use a limited number of fonts and colors, with consistent text sizing.
• Add wedding-themed graphics if you’d like.
• Use Canva’s alignment and spacing tools to center and evenly distribute elements.
• Ask someone you trust to review the design. A fresh perspective can catch issues you may have stopped noticing.

For a matching details card, start with a postcard design and draw inspiration from the invitation’s colors, fonts, and spacing. You can design one side as the front and the other as the back. To link guests to your wedding website, add a QR code through Canva’s Apps section and link it to the full URL.

Printing and Finishing

Sarah printed through Canva. Her costs and paper choices were:

• 100 invitations: About $95 for deluxe paper with an uncoated finish and square corners. Uncoated paper is writable and non-glossy.
• 100 postcards: About $36 for luxury paper with an uncoated finish.

Paper, finish, and corner options can affect the price. When deciding how many invitations to order, count households rather than guests—couples often need only one invitation.

For an optional engraved-border effect, use a scoring board to trace lines around each card. Sarah used a quarter-inch grid for her 5-by-7-inch invitations. Practice on a spare card first, and avoid pressing too hard.

You can place the invitation and details card in a vellum cover. Keep in mind that extra decorations, unusual shapes, and wax seals may increase postage; wax-seal stickers are an alternative. Sarah used ivory envelopes, handwritten guest addresses, and a custom return-address stamper. Printed labels or a Cricut are other addressing options.

Wedding-Planning Support

Sarah also briefly discusses using BetterHelp therapy during the stress of wedding planning. She was matched with a therapist and notes that clients can switch if the fit isn’t right.

Services and Products Mentioned

• Canva
• BetterHelp
• The Knot wedding website
• Scoring board
• Vellum covers
• Wax-seal stickers
• Ivory envelopes
• Custom return-address stamper
• Cricut