We’ve discussed how to print your own wedding invitations, we’ve talked about how to design DIY invites, but in all this DIY talk, we need to discuss something important: What NOT to do. For just a piece of paper, wedding invitations are important. They’re your guests’ roadmap to your invitation – the style, the formality, the directions – and you need to treat them as such, even if you happen to design a DIY invite.

1. Don’t use your own handwriting unless you’ve taken calligraphy lessons. Saving money is great, but running invitations and envelopes through the printer is a better idea. Even if you have the most beautiful handwriting in the world, there’s a good chance one of your guests won’t be able to read it.

2. Don’t cut out cardstock using just your hands and scissors. It’s nearly impossible to cut a straight line, which is vital for making your DIY invites look like they were done by pros. Invest in a $20 straight cutter, which you can find at any local craft store.

3. Don’t forget to proofread! This can’t be stressed enough – spell-check, grammar check, then have someone else with great English skills look over the invitations. One of the most embarrassing things you can do is send out a DIY invite with a glaring spelling error. It’s even worse if that spelling error happens to be the name of your future in-laws.

4. Don’t forget to give yourself enough time. By waiting until the last minute to create your DIY invites, you not only risk them not getting to your guests on time, but you’ll also create sloppy work. You need a lot of time to create homemade, beautiful wedding invitations, so don’t cut corners.

5. Don’t include registry information. It’s just tacky.

7. Don’t use abbreviations. It’s so much more elegant to spell out “Saturday, the first of October, two thousand nine.”

8. Don’t just look at designs on the computer, print them out. You don’t know how something really look until you see it on paper in the right lighting.

9. Don’t design the invitation before you know you have the envelopes to send them. By creating a quirky-shaped design before you know you have the envelopes to send them in, you’re basically shooting yourself in the foot. Buy envelopes first, then design the invitation. 10. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Take a good look at yourself, your free time and your design skills. Are all of them conducive to you design a DIY invite? Be realistic, and don’t be ashamed to outsource part or all of the work to a professional.

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The colors of a wedding are beautiful – the rich shades of bridesmaid dresses, the hues of the centerpiece flowers and the bold red lipstick coloring the bride’s face. Yes, wedding photography requires a good assortment of colored photos to accurately represent the beauty of the day.

But there’s a lesser-recognized beauty in black and white photography. The moment that a bride’s mother clasps the hand of her daughter with a tear in her eye – that’s a moment for a black and white photo. The anxiety that flashes through the groom’s eyes when he realizes he’s about to tie the knot – black and white all the way. Emotion just show better in black and white photography because the eyes have fewer colors to process and the subject of the photo really shines through. Black and white photography is perfect for the more intimate moments of a wedding, while color photography really captures the wider picture.

One big benefit to Black and white photography is that it manages to evoke a timeless feel to pictures. So a picture taken today can often look and feel like it has been taken 60 years ago.

Black and white photography has other more tangible benefits as well. Skin imperfections are less noticeable because the grayness will mask any redness or discoloration – a big incentive for a bride while she’s getting ready for the day and her make-up hasn’t quite been perfected.

Black and white photography also lasts longer than colored photography. On average, colored photographs will fade after 50 years. Black and white photos printed on archival paper can last hundreds of years and be passed down generation after generation through your family.

A good photographer will offer you an assortment of black and white and colored photography, with the number of each varying depending on the type of shots he or she gets. You can ask a photographer for a certain amount of black and white photos, but you should also trust their judgment that they will know which shades are right for each moment they’ve captured.

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One of the first DIY projects that a bride on the budget turns to is wedding invitations. It used to be that a homemade wedding invitation could be spotted a mile away, with its uneven edges and crooked lines. Now, with the prevalence of ready-to-go cardstock, Photoshop for designs and high-quality printers, it’s easier than ever to print your own wedding invitations. All it takes to print your own wedding invitations is five easy steps.

Step one: Choose your paper. Web sites such as paper-papers.com and discountcardstock.com offer cheap cardstock in a variety of colors and finished to complete your project. Choose the heaviest paper you can afford to ensure a higher quality. Don’t forget to buy matching envelopes. The other option is to buy a wedding invitation kit, which includes paper, envelopes and matching accessories, and can be bought everywhere from Wal-Mart to specialty stationary stores.

Step two: Make sure your printer is up to snuff. Laser printers work best to print your own wedding invitations because the ink dries quickly and you can get more bang for your buck out of one cartridge. Laserjet printers can be costly, though, so weigh your options and make sure that the cost of buying a printer will be well worth it in the end. (Perhaps you have a home business with a printer that could use upgrading?)

Step three: Find a basic greeting card or graphic design program. Photoshop Element runs about $100, while rudimentary greeting card software can be found for $10-$20. Find a tutorial online and learn how to use the different features before designing the invitations.

Step four: Design the invitations. For a non-designer, the best option is to browse through professionally designed invitations online and find one you like. While you shouldn’t copy it exactly – that would compromise the designer’s copyright – get inspiration in the form of colors, patterns or shapes. Remember that simple is always better. The worst thing that can happen is that you’ll look back on your invitation in 20 years and wonder why you designed the invitation with so many different elements on it. Take fonts into consideration – typically wedding invitations uses an elegant script font, but play around with what you want depending on the atmosphere you’re aiming for. Keep the font size between nine and twelve point – big enough that it’s readable for all your guests, but small enough that all the pertinent information will fit – and only use two fonts at maximum to keep the invitation from looking like alphabet soup.

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