We decided that it was not sufficient to include just the designs that offer the best value because since we offer heavy discounts on the leading brands it would be difficult not to blow our own trumpet and include everything.  We then chose to look purely at price and focussed on the cost for 50 invitations of all our designs and draw a line at the cheapest.   This is where a further problem emerged.

Renaissance from Collison White Lace Collection

There are a growing number of wedding invitation designs that now include what traditionally would have been classed as separate items.  For example the Collisons Renaissance and Simplicity collections open out to feature an internal pocket that contain a reply card and guest information card.  These pocketfold designs have ‘additional items’ which are included in the price of the day invitation making them exceptionally good value.  Similary, the invitation in the Bound Together range from CCA, as the name suggests has a reply card bound together with the invitation.  When customers buy the wedding invitation in this range they are essentially getting a reply card for free.   In other words, the some of the individual parts of these designs would be a lot greater than their whole.

It looks like we need to give the section a bit more thought because it would be important not to exclude designs such as those highlighted above to customers looking for a budget wedding invitations especially when they need to buy other items such as reply cards and guest information cards along with their invites.

I am not sure the reasoning behind the change of name as ido-print.co.uk becomes ido-personalise.co.uk recently. The name is owned by leading wedding stationery publishers CCA Occasions and I guess the brand name change was made to underpin the key selling point behind the trading name. The thing that sets ido-personalise.co.uk apart from the rest is the way that the customer can personalise their stationery online. CCA Occasions have invested a lot of time and money into developing Pageflex technology. There are many companies that let you personalise your stationery online but these almost always rely on some manual proofsetting after you have placed your order. These suppliers will usually have to send you a pdf to show you the exact layout and spacing and to show you what your chosen font and ink colour will look like. Some may even need to mock up an actual card for you with your chosen design and wording. This is not the case with ido-personalise.co.uk where they really do leave the work to you when it comes to preparing your cards for print.

Invitation self proofing at Ido-personalise.co.uk

This is of course not to everyones taste and some people may prefer the personal touch and some feedback as to their choice of wording and etiquette. For those however, who want a no fuss, order and forget about it approach, to ordering their stationery then sharing the proof burden up front may be the perfect option. Ido-personalise does give you a handful of suggested wording layouts and covers the popular choices of parents hosting or bride and groom hosting their own etc. You then have the tools to drag, drop and add text etc and convert your work into a printable pdf for proofing more carefully. There is no going back and once you have approved your proof and paid for your order there is a good chance it will be running through the digital presses in CCA Occasion’s Preston factory within a few hours. It is doubly important therefore to check for spelling and grammatical errors again and again. Let your partner or friend check for you as well because it is so easy to become proof blind to an obvious error even after checking through yourself several times. Another paid of eyes reading your wording for the first time can save you a costly reprint bill down the line.

All of the designs at Ido-personalise are printed on a digital press and have a glossy finish. Many of them let you incorporate the bride and groom’s name on to the front of the card in “Moonpig style” fashion. This an original approach to wedding card design but unfortunatly there is little originality between different items with a range and you will tend to find that the only thing that may differentiation an invitation, reply card and Order of service is that size of the board it is printed on. There is also no finishing touches or extra processes on offer so you will not find any foiling, embossing, die cutting, laser cutting, raised ink, ribbons embellishments etc etc that other companies often use to add a luxury finish. CCA Occasions will be quick to point out however that they do have a portfolio of other brands that cater for these tastes more than adequately and Ido-personalise cater for quick printed contemporary designs at a reasonable price. In fact, price is one thing they are generous with and this is no surprise since they are leaving a lot of the hardwork to you when it come to proofing your order. Ido-personalise.co.uk is a recent addition to our Wedding Voucher Codes site (click on the banner to the right) where we may have a promotional code running to save you even more on your stationery.

CCA Wedding

CCA Occasion’s direct wedding stationery sales site www.ccawedding.co.uk has been a long time in development and until recently I have not featured it in the past because the ordering system was frankly a little clumsy.  Not only that but I felt that better deals for the exact same wedding invitations could be achieved elsewhere from CCA agents.  Well now, I am pleased to say, that the ordering system has been polished up and with our exclusive referral code 003846WS you can get 10% off the RRP.

To use the referral code you simply need to type in code  003846WS when prompted on the shopping basket screen and your 10% discount will automatically be deducted.   If we saved you some money of your invitation order then please leave a comment below.  Many Thanks

CCA Occasions have probably the largest range of wedding invitations anywhere and their designs can be found through many high street stores including WHSmith, BHS, and Debenhams.   The high street is not where the bargains can be found mind you and may turn out to be much more expensive.  A quick search online for “CCA Occasions” and you will find there are many online stores selling the full CCA personalised stationery range.  Olivia Samuel, for instance,  are currently offering 20% off the full CCA range and it is amazing to find out what savings you can make.

As a typical example,  I took the Butterflies design (CCA Occasions code 5MXP000) and compared the prices between the BHS store and Olivia Samuel.  If you purchase 60 Day Invitations from BHS the cost is £190.00.  The exact same cards from Olivia Samuel would cost only £152.00 and you would also get a Free Keepsake box.  You will find similar savings from other online retailers.  The funny thing is that wherever you purchase from (be it the internet or the High Street) the cards are all made and personalised from the same CCA factory in Preston.  Presto ! 20% saving in the bag just by doing a little research.  Whatever design you go for just remember to find the manufacturers code for the day invitation and type it into Google.  You might be surprised to find you can find it cheaper elsewhere.

You can choose from the full CCA Occasions range of stationery, Letterpress of Cirencester and they will soon have the full range of Collisons invitations, including the relaunched White Lace collection.  All at vastly discounted prices.