Planning a social event can be extremely stressful, especially since getting everyone together when you’re an adult is a nearly impossible job. As a child, when my birthday was near, I would ask my mum for a load of paper and I’d sit for hours creating my own invitations. Then I’d hand them out myself at school or at a playground, hoping that everyone would turn up. I didn’t hear about the term RSVP until I was about 20. But with the rise of the power of the internet and online reality, it feels like paper invitations can soon be a thing of the past. So when Paperless Post got in touch with me about trying out their services, it didn’t take me a lot of time to jump on board. Fancy finding out what it’s all about? Then let’s get right into it.
What is Paperless Post?
Paperless Post is a company that allows its customers to buy, customise, send and respond to invitations and cards of all sorts from “Get Well Soon”s to wedding and birthday invitations. How does it work? The idea behind is simple – you choose a design you like and customise it as your heart desires, send it via email and collect responses all through the website. It’s almost like doing it all yourself with physical copies, but without the faff and running to the post office for stamps or to send it off. But that’s not all. Apart from selling their own design, Paperless Post collaborates with a multitude of popular stationery designers and shops like Kate Spade and Anthropologie. And you can access that from the comfort of your own home!
The paperless pricing
I know what you’re thinking. If it’s so customisable and online, it must cost more, right? Funnily enough, I thought it was going to be expensive myself. But it turns out that even if you don’t want to spend any money or have a tight budget, there are many free designs to choose from. You can also send it to up to 2,000 email adresses entirely for free! So unless you want to choose any premium designs, you can keep your money and save it for later. If you do feel like paying for the service however, Paperless Post uses coins that you need to purchase in order to buy anything. When you sign up you are automatically gifted 25 coins which you can use to choose a premium feature on a design.
But I’ve got even better news for you – even if you were to buy coins and spend actual money, it still works out cheaper to send invites through Paperless Post, rather than actual physical ones. The exchange rate works in your favour as you can buy 20 coins for $6 (works out to just under 5). And 20 coins can already get you many invitations, depending on how many paid features you choose. It may not work out as well if you were to send only a couple cards or invite only a small group of people, but for bigger events like a wedding or office party, it can be a great budgeting option.
The new Flyer feature
The Flyer feature on the website is, in my opinion, the best choice for many reasons. First of all, it’s free. You choose and customise a design on the website (Flyer lets you add GIFs as well) and when you’re done, you’re presented with a link that you can post to your social media, WhatsApp group or send individually in a text. But it doesn’t stop you from using the traditional way of sending an email through the website either. The generated link can be used by your guests to RSVP which will automatically create a list on your Paperless account of who’s responded and who needs to be chased up. It’s definitely got a more casual feel to it though, so if you’re looking to organise a work event, I’d opt for a more formal choice.
Unfortunately, Flyers are not as customisable as standard invitations, but I’m putting it down to the fact that’s it’s still a new feature that is being worked on. When I tried to use it instead of a traditional birthday invitation, I was presented with a wide choice of cards, but only in a few colours and styles. The feature needs to be polished a bit more, but hopefully, they can add more choices as the popularity of it grows, because it’s got the incredible potential to become more popular than other forms of invitations.
My experience
As soon as I took a look at their website I was in love. As a stationery addict, it felt like online heaven to me. You can honestly find cards and invitations for pretty much every occasion in life which I was pleasantly surprised with. The choice for each category is also quite big so everyone can find something they like. The categories had me browsing the website for hours thinking about all the possibilities in which I could use Paperless invitations. However, for now, I took to designing my birthday invitation. After scrolling through the website for (quite literally) days, I found a card that I just couldn’t stop thinking about and I knew it was the one. After choosing the final design, I was allowed to customise pretty much everything about it, from the size and colour of fonts to uploading my own pictures, adding stickers and even personalising the envelopes. I went for a rose gold one, naturally, but it was a tough call. Every single step was as enjoyable as the previous one and I will definitely be coming back to Paperless Post whenever I’m throwing a party.
All in all, I have enjoyed using Paperless Post designs and customising the invites to fit quite possibly every occasion in my life I could think of. Just look how cute my birthday invitation turned out to be! I feel like this is definitely a step forward in the modern world and can so easily see more and more people turning to this way of sending cards and invitations as it just makes it so much easier and simpler. If you’d like to try the services out yourself, don’t hesitate and head over to their website by clicking here.
If I were to find anything negative about the service they provide, it would be the fact that some people like the elderly for example, may not be able to receive such invitations. If I were to choose Paperless Post to create my wedding invitations, I know for a fact I would have to purchase at least 5 physical ones to hand out to those in our families who are not familiar or comfortable with the use of emails. But that would be the only minus of using online post and that’s me trying very hard to find something negative to say about it.
But what are your thoughts about it? Would you give Paperless Post or any other similar company like that a go? Let me know in the comments below as I’m very curious to see your opinions about it!
Until next time xx
This post was written in collaboration with Paperless Post. I was kindly asked by the company to try out their services and share my opinion about my experience. They gifted me virtual coins in order to make the most out of their website. As always all of the opinions are my own and are not influenced by the collaboration. Read more about my Disclaimer Policy here.
Read more: Getting married before our wedding day? or My princess-worthy engagement story
Tags : online cards, online invitations, paperless cards, paperless invitations, Paperless Post, wedding invitations
