I love weddings. Actually. I LOOOOVE weddings. Prior to Pinterest, I bought wedding magazines regularly because I loved looking at all of the beautiful things. In my mind, my wedding would be big and elegant and fancy but somewhere along the way my dreams for my own wedding departed the land of fairytale romance and landed in the realm of frugal reality.

Once we locked in our wedding date, I immediately went online to find wedding invitations. We found some really beautiful ones that totally go with the theme of our wedding. I was so excited about them… until I realized that they were like $1.75 EACH at the cheapest. A huge part of how we’re doing our wedding is that we want to invite EVERYONE, and thinking about sending 500 invitations at $1.75 each… that’s $875! Then I thought, “I’ll just design our own wedding invitations!” and that lasted for about 1.5 hours before I realized I’m actually too lazy to do that.

That’s when we decided to order them and go about it in the most inexpensive way possible. Here’s the way we’ve done that:

ONE // VISTAPRINT

We decided to go with Vistaprint. They always have sales and coupon codes plus we were able to combine it with Ebates and get cash back for our purchase. Their site has a bunch of different invitation designs that would fit a variety of themes, and their bulk prices are really reasonable. If you’re frugal and way less lazy than I am, you can even upload your own designs and they’ll print them. After the 30% off code, we paid $0.46 per printed invitation (they came with envelopes!). We ordered matching return labels, which were $13.38 for 280 (or $.05 each). Total = $.51 per invitation.

TWO // NO SUITE

While the part of me that LOVES receiving mail really wanted RSVP cards, the part of me that LOVES saving money really didn’t want to buy them, so we didn’t. We didn’t include any of the “suite” ideas – RSVP cards, ceremony details, etc. Instead we decided to utilize the back side of the invitation and filled it with those details. We added an RSVP page to justenandstephanie.com (Justen built it – I love it!) and said you could rsvp there or to either of us. The back also has our ceremony and registry information. Boom. One piece of paper.

THREE // ADD YOUR OWN SPECIAL TOUCH

Once we received the invitations, I spent days staring at them and actually wishing they were a little more fancy. They had printed glitter, but no real glitter or shiny gold or anything that made them feel personal. After receiving multiple clear messages that I should not fill each envelope with glitter, I realized I could maybe somehow add a bag of glitter. I looked everywhere for clear envelopes of some sort. They were all too expensive. I carried an invitation in my purse and went into store after store holding it up to treat bags of various sizes and trying to find SOMETHING so that I wouldn’t have to resort to the Pinterest pins I’d seen about making your own envelopes using wax paper because I AM JUST SO LAZY!

Then one day at Party City, I found the perfect size Wilton treat bags and bought a couple hundred. Then I embarked on the journey of finding the stuff to fill the bags with. Did you realize that finding a bulk bag of gold confetti glitter mix isn’t really easy? I finally caved and ordered thousands of sequins from some sequins supplier and then some tissue paper holes from Amazon and sat around and waited. While I was waiting, I discovered a bunch of Target Easter grass, paid $1.69/lb for some and then went home to experiment. I had a random jar of chunky gold glitter, which I then supplemented with more gold glitter and sequins from Target. If you’re doing the math, yes I have way more loose sequins than I can even figure out what to do with.

Thanks to binge watching Are You The One? (don’t get started on my taste in classy television) I was able to sit down and spend HOURS cutting up easter grass and sprinkling that, glitter + sequins into little treat bags, folding them and taping them and then taping them to the top of the invitations with washi tape.

sorry that ones so grainy 

FOUR // HAND DELIVER

Since owning an owl to deliver mail has yet to become a thing in muggle world, and stamps can add up quickly, we’re hand delivering as many invitations as possible. My dad will get all of the invitations for my stepfamily, my mom will keep the ones from her friends, and we’ll make sure to keep the invitations with us when we see people. Stamps add up.

Now that the invitations are starting to be delivered people, it’s starting to become so real. We’re going to promise in front of our friends and family to choose each other every single day, and then we’re going to have a party! I’m excited to continue sharing with you ways we’re saving money on our wedding. 😀

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Welcome to the second installment of The Poshmark Series, where I’m walking y’all through how to make some moolah on Poshmark. You can read the intro post here, or you can keep scrolling to find out why I recommend Poshmark over other reselling options.

Check out my closet here, and sign up for Poshmark here with my code BWCTE for $5 credit towards your first purchase! 

Poshmark VS. ThredUp

ThredUp is an online consignment store. They send you a big bag, you shove it full of high-quality name brand items and send it in. Prior to them sorting the bag you can pay a fee to have anything they won’t accept returned to you, or you could forgo that expense and they’ll discard the unaccepted clothing. They take the shipping charge off of what your bag is worth and then they give you a ThredUp balance of that amount. After two weeks or so you can redeem it for a visa gift card sent via the mail. The waiting period is probably in hopes that you’ll choose instead to spend it on their site.

ThredUp is better than Poshmark if you have piles of clothing you’re on the verge of donating and making $0. If you have a bunch of clothes you want out of your house ASAP, then ThredUp is the best option for you. You can join with my link and receive off your first purchase.

Poshmark is better than ThredUp if you are wanting to have control of the money you make and you have the time/space to dedicate to clothes you’re waiting to sell. Your items may not sell immediately, but you get to choose the price and you get to control how low you’re willing to sell them.

Here’s why I choose Poshmark over ThredUp: I once found a pair of Athleta leggings at the bins. I only paid 75 cents or so for them. They weren’t in my size, but I thought they were a pretty good find. This was pre-Poshmark for me, so I sent them to ThredUp expecting to make some good money off of it. They gave me $4ish dollars for the leggings, and within 24 hours they had sold them for $54. No. Thank. You.

Poshmark VS. eBay

I have been selling my old Victoria’s Secret PINK sweatpants on eBay since… well, forever. Most of my sweats came from various thrift stores, so I tend to acquire overflowing drawers full, then I’ll sell a bunch and then re-fill the drawers. Most people know how eBay works, but here’s an overview just in case. You can list your item to sell or auction and it’s seen by a lot of people. Buyers can bid and outbid and they have a bit of a choice over how much they’re willing to pay. You, of course, can set the starting bid or buy it now price.

Where ThredUp is the middle man between buyers and sellers, eBay is less so. You are in charge of determining shipping costs and deciding which shipping method to use and invoicing the buyer, unless you have a set shipping fee.

eBay is better than Poshmark if you want to sell a variety of items. Poshmark is strictly clothing, shoes, accessories & NWT makeup items. If you have lotions, trinkets, etc. eBay is your way to go. It also is more widely known, so your potential audience is much greater.

Poshmark is better than eBay if you don’t want to deal with the hassle of shipping. I’ll talk about this more in a later post, but they charge a flat shipping rate of $6.95 for 2-3 day delivery up to 5 lbs. The buyer automatically pays the shipping cost and your only hassle is making sure you have the correct packaging.

Here’s why I choose Poshmark over eBay: There were a pair of NWT Old Navy jeans that had been sitting in my Poshmark closet, unsold. I’d picked them up at the Bins and I decided I just wanted them gone. Shipping is confusing, and even though I’d weighed the jeans beforehand when I went to buy the postage, I ended up paying almost exactly what the buyer had sent me to cover the whole transaction – meaning I sent away a brand new pair of jeans and made less than a dollar on them. I’m sure there’s a learning curve, but I’m not down to lose a bunch of money while I figure it out.

Poshmark vs Vinted, Mercari, other clothes reselling sites/apps

Vinted is similar to Poshmark, but online. They have forums and encourage a lot of user engagement. There’s just not a huge buyer audience there. There’s a reason you won’t find a J. Crew store in a little Main Street shop in the middle of nowhere. If you’re selling a product you want people to buy, you should probably sell it where the buyers are. This is why so many big name stores have been closing lately. The buyers are not walking into their doors, the buyers are shopping online.

As for the other reselling sites and apps, I just don’t have time to manage that. Cross posting, making sure the inventories are accurate.. I just have not the time. Instead of spreading my energy thin by learning a zillion different selling tools, I’ve chosen to focus on ONE: Poshmark. If you want to learn more, here is a post about selling on Mercari and here is one about selling on Vinted.

So now that I’ve shared with you why I choose to use Poshmark over other platforms, join me next Friday for the next installment in The Poshmark Series, which is going to be all about getting started – the lingo and the basics! As always, hit me up with any questions you may have because the last post in the series is going to be full of YOUR questions!

Overall, Poshmark

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